


Welcome To Mystic Falls High

by acchica2527



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Camille (mentioned) - Freeform, F/F, Hosie, Klayley, Legacies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:02:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acchica2527/pseuds/acchica2527
Summary: What would have happened if the Salvatore School was never built?How would supernatural teens survive high school?At Mystic Falls High, they are hidden in plain sight, but can they keep their supernatural world a secret? They will, if the Mikaelson's have anything to say about it.It's not the AU 2 world from episode 1x10, sorry to disappoint but I will say I did take some ideas from it.





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, so this is another one of the many story ideas I've had running through my head for the past month, but i've seriously debated about posting this. I'm posting below a brief little idea background on this story, I know it's kind of vague but this is more so a space for me to ask you all on if this is a story you would all be interested in reading?
> 
> I know I've seen some people wanted to see stories from the AU1 and AU2 worlds in 1x10 but the ideas I've got for this story wouldn't exactly match those story lines but it sort of lines up with the AU2 world in some ways.
> 
> But yeah anyways, does this sound like a potentially interesting story idea to you all? I legit keep going back and forth about it but I want to hear from y'all, does this seem like a story you would want me to pursue?

To the outside world, Mystic Falls, Virginia was just another small town. To those who live here, it’s home and for most, it always has been and always will be home. It has its quirks filled with tradition and history dating back to when the country was first founded.To a normal human being, Mystic Falls is the cute hometown that you see in the movies, you know, the one with the white picket fences. It’s a town where everyone knows everyone but even in a town like that, it has its own secrets.

 

You see, Mystic Falls isn’t just another small town, because not every person who lives here is just another normal human being. Hidden among them is a society of supernatural beings; witches, vampires, and werewolves, living in plain sight. How could you possibly keep this world a secret, you might ask, especially with supernatural teenagers running around. Well when the most powerful family to ever live resides in your town, you make sure to keep your mouth shut and your powers hidden because with their family history everyone knew not to piss off the Mikaelsons. At Mystic Falls High, just like at any other high school there is a known hierarchy, and among the supernaturals there is only one person who reigns at the top. 

 

But what happens when the most powerful being on earth starts going soft, what happens when she starts to let her walls fall for someone?


	2. Give Him The Grand Tour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well since you all seemed to be very interested in this story idea, I guess this will be my latest ongoing multi-chapter story. Sorry if this chapter seems a bit slow, had to set the stage a little with this chapter. Thank you again for all the love everyone, hope you all enjoy this new story.
> 
> As always, apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors. Thank you again for clicking on this story.

It was just another beautiful Fall morning at Mystic Falls High. Students were slowly arriving and hanging outside in the quad just waiting for the school day to start. Josie was hanging out with her teammates at their usual varsity soccer table out in the quad, just talking about their game later on that day. They were all wearing their game day jerseys, it was their big rivalry game and everyone was going to be there. They were all just laughing and joking around when Josie heard a familiar voice calling her name.

 

“Josie!” Josie turned to see her father walking towards her with a new student closely following him. As the head of student admissions, he was responsible for making sure new students integrated well into their school and usually that involved having his daughters show them around.

 

“I’ll see you guys later,” she tells her teammates and friends, throwing her backpack over her shoulder before she makes her way over to her dad. “Hey dad, what’s up?”

 

“Hi sweetheart, I’d like to introduce you to our newest student Milton Greasley.” Alaric tells her as he gestures to the boy standing next to him.

 

“You can call me MG. Please, call me MG.” The boy tells her as he extends his hand out for Josie to shake.

 

Josie smiles at him and laughs as she reaches out to his hand, “Ha okay MG well, I’m Josie and it’s nice to meet you.”

 

“Do you think you could give him the grand tour around school please?” He asks her giving her a knowing look as he puts a little emphasis on “grand tour”.

 

Josie smiles back at him acknowledging she understood what he was asking her to do, “Sure thing dad.”

 

“Awesome, thank you. Well if you excuse me, I need to get back to the front office. You’re in good hands MG don’t worry.” He tells them giving MG a pat on the shoulder before he heads back into the school.

 

“You ready MG?”Josie asks turning her attention to the boy, and smiled at him when he simply nodded yes, “Alright, let’s get started.” Josie starts their tour outside making a quick trip to show him where the their football field and track is, pointing out all the spots students go to smoke, what areas to avoid during lunch if you didn’t want to catch people making out, and the path to take that leads to the other athletic fields. As Josie starts to lead MG back to the quad she asks him a question he was not expecting at all.

 

“So MG, when did you turn?”

 

“Um excuse me?” MG had this look of panic on his face as he looked at Josie who seemed completely unfazed by his reaction. If he would have been drinking something he would have definitely done a spit take. He quickly looked around them nervous if anyone else was near by as he whispered “How did you...?”

 

“Relax MG. You’re not alone here.” Josie was trying to hold in her laughter as she watched MG’s facial expressions change, looking like a cartoon character completely shocked.

 

“So you’re a…” MG began to ask still unsure if Josie was legit asking him about being a vampire or not.

 

“No I’m not a vampire, I’m a witch well, specifically a siphoner.” Josie explained casually, she’s pretty used to having this conversation.

 

“Oh okay,” MG started to relax at her answer but now this just brought on more and more questions for him, “So how did you know?”

 

“My dad only tells me to give the “grand” tour to the “special” students.” Josie answered him with the necessary air quotes. It was silly but an effective code for their situation. “Well that and when I shook your hand I could feel it. Slight advantage of being a siphoner, even if I’m not pulling magic I can sense it.”

 

“Oh okay cool. So I’m guessing we aren’t the only special students around here are we?” MG asked as Josie had them stop by one of the giant trees by the parking lot, making sure they aren’t too close for the normal students to hear them.

 

“You would be correct sir. I’d say about a fifth of the student body here is just like us.” Josie answers him confidently.

 

“Oh wow. That’s kind of crazy.” MG commented looking around the quad trying to process just how many students that number would equal to. “So obviously we’ve got vamps and witches here, does that mean there are werewolves as well?”

 

“Right again MG. For example…” Josie starts as she points over to a group of lacrosse players on the far side of the quad, “You see those lacrosse players, the two closest to us are wolves.”

 

“Seriously?” MG asks a bit skeptical. “Isn’t that a little, you know too “Teen Wolf”-ish.”

 

This just makes Josie laugh, “Okay yes, that’s true but for the wolves its actually the best outlet for them when it comes to sports around here.”

 

“Really? I would think football would be?” MG asks, clearly understanding a little about werewolves but not fully aware of the full extent of their tendencies.

 

“Not if they want to risk exposing themselves.” Josie started to answer as she faced the young vampire who still seemed a bit confused, “With the wolves aggressive side, playing football runs the risk of showing just how strong they are, how fast they really are, and how much higher they can jump than everyone else. So if they can’t keep their powers in check football is the worst sport for them to play. Lacrosse is better suited for them because they are constantly moving, they can essentially hit each other at any position but it isn’t something they have to do.”

 

“Okay, I guess that makes a lot more sense.” MG noted thinking through what Josie was saying.

 

“Well MG, you ready to meet the head of the Vampires here?”

 

“Yeah,” MG starts a little hesitant as he straightens up his posture a little, “yeah let’s go.”

 

Josie just smiles at MG as she leads him back over to the picnic tables and heads directly to one of the most crowded looking tables.

 

“Hey Kaleb!” Josie calls out to the Vamp leader sitting on top of the picnic table. Kaleb shifts his attention to Josie nodding his head to her, acknowledging her before he gestures to the group surrounding his table to head inside. The entire group descends just as the two reach the table.

 

“What’s up Josie and who do we have here?” Kaleb answers back as he stands up from the table and hops down to meet them at ground level.

 

“I’ve got a new one for you, Kaleb this is MG. MG meet Kaleb, he’s the one who is going to keep you in check around here.” Josie introduces them to each other as the two boys shake hands and greet one another.

 

Kaleb directs the two to sit down at the table as he takes his spot back on top of it. Kaleb and Josie begin to ask MG questions trying to get to know the new vamp a little better, you know the typical questions like, _what are your hobbies? what’s your favorite color?_ _where are you from? When did you move to Mystic Falls? How did you turn?_ You know, the usual. After a few more questions, MG speaks up with his own.

 

“So how is it y’all are able to go here and have none of the normal students have any clue what’s going on?” He asked with a hushed tone, still very hyper aware of their surrounding.

 

“Well we have our own sort of checks and balances around here. We take care and look out for each other but we’ve got our own rules we have to follow so no one discovers what’s really going on here.” Josie begins to explain as she looks at Kaleb expecting him to continue on with the explanation.

 

So Kaleb goes on, “Yeah so you see we have our different factions, as you know we’ve got our Vampires, our witches and werewolves. Well obviously we aren’t all the same so each faction has our own set of rules that we need to follow, to protect ourselves from being exposed.”

 

“Okay so what are some of these rules then.” MG asks giving Kaleb his full attention.

 

“Well for the vamps it’s simple, no feeding from the other students or any faculty here. We’ve got ways of getting food, so if you need something during lunch, come to me. Other wise you need to hold off until after school to get food. Absolutely no vamp speed or strength. If you struggle to control your abilities when it comes to physical activities you can’t try out for a sports team. Don’t you dare try compelling people, the sherif around her puts vervain in the water now and then so we have no idea who is susceptible to being compelled. We do not want to get caught attempting to compel someone and it not working. If it is a dire situation and you have to compel someone you need to tell me why and what happened immediately. If you ever have trouble or you are struggling you come to me, I’ll start introducing you to everyone else in our faction soon, that way if you can’t find me you go to one of them. Or you can go to Josie.” The last comment from Kaleb catches MG a little off guard a bit surprised Kaleb would suggest going to Josie to help. Not that Josie didn’t seem helpful or anything, she had been nothing but nice and welcoming to him but it struck him as odd as to why Kaleb would be okay with him going to Josie if she wasn’t a vampire.

 

Before he could ask why Josie however he was interrupted by a high pitched “WOOOO!” and the sudden appearance of a gorgeous blonde hugging Josie from behind as she chanted, “Game day! Game day! Game DAY!”

 

“HA HA! Lizzie get off of me, we were literally together like 20 minutes ago!” Josie tried to complain through her laughter at her sisters antics.

 

“I know, I know. I just can’t wait to see y’all crush those bitches over at Ravenscroft.” Lizzie stated as she took a seat to her sisters side mirroring Kaleb on top of the table, “Hey Kaleb, and oh hi. Who do we have here?” Lizzie asks giving MG a sweet smile.

 

“Umm hi,” MG starts, a bit mesmerized by the new girl in front of him, “I’m MG.”

 

“MG, this is my twin sister Lizzie,” Josie begins as Lizzie cuts in to add, “fraternal obviously.” The two smile at him as he takes it all in looking between the two girls.

 

“It’s nice to meet you MG.” Lizzie replies with that sweet smile still on her face. To MG’s disappointment though the moment didn’t last long as Lizzie’s attention went back to her sister sitting next to her.“Hey so I’ve pretty much got the whole faction coming to the game later, if she-who-shall-not-be-named pulls some shit can we please get some magical pay back for you.”

 

Josie just gives her a stern look, “No you can’t Lizzie, as much as I hate her, you know the rules. No magical tampering sports events.”

 

“Okay yes but, if you said it was okay then no one would question it.” Lizzie tried to counter.

 

“Why would it be okay if Josie said so.” MG questioned, not trying to be nosey but definitely intrigued by the the girls conversation.

 

“Josie’s the head of the witch faction dude.” Kaleb answers and it all starts making sense for MG.

 

“Yeah my sister runs shit around here,” Lizzie adds in proudly, looking over at her sister who just laughs and shakes her head at her blonde twin, “Okay well she runs the witches, she helps with the rest of this place as well.”

 

“So that’s why you are cool with me going to Josie if I can’t find you or anyone else from our faction?” MG asks for some sort of confirmation from Kaleb.

 

“That’s right, I trust Josie, like all the other supernaturals around here so, you should too.” MG smiles at Kaleb’s words but this causes another major question for him.

 

“What about the werewolves?”

 

The other three students all looked at one another, all seeming to try and figure out how to explain that situation, it takes a moment before Josie finally speaks, “That’s a bit of a complicated situation.”

 

MG just looks confused between the tree of them, signaling for them to go on.

 

“Okay you see that table over there the one farthest away from us right next to the parking lot,” MG fully turned around in his seat on the bench to look where Kaleb was pointing. His eyes followed to where Josie had previously pointed out and noticed another large group of people. “Over there that guy walking up the the table now is Jed, he’s the pack leader at school.”

 

“So he’s the Alpha?” MG questions as he watches the group great the werewolf.

 

“Not exactly.” Lizzie answers almost immediately, causing MG to turn his attention back to the three people sitting behind him.

 

“The wolves at school are apart of a larger pack that lives here in Mystic Falls. Jed is more like on that third level of power when it comes to the pack, he’s just responsible for the wolves that are here. Just like how me and Josie are responsible for our groups, but we aren’t the top heads of our factions.” Kaleb explains.

 

“Okay so you said he’s like 3rd on that power scale, who’s above him? Who’s their alpha.”

 

Suddenly all of their attention, including most of the student body in the quad, shifts towards the parking lot at the sound of a loud engine roar. Everyone seemed to freeze, mesmerized at the sight of the matte black BMW i8 pull into the empty front row parking spot, as if it was saved just for them. You could hear a pin drop as the car engine shuts off, there was nothing but pure silence as everyone waited in anticipation.

 

Suddenly as if this were a scene from a movie the driver side scissor door lifts up as everything seems to go into slo motion, as the driver’s black ankle high heeled boot touches the asphalt.

 

“Who is that?” MG asks as the driver fully emerges from the car, flipping her auburn hair in the process before she ran her fingers through it and put her aviator sunglasses back on. Her blue skinny jeans hugged her curves perfectly, clearly showing off her body. Everyone watched in awe as this girl threw her leather jacket back on her shoulders over her plain white v-neck as she walked to the trunk of her car.

 

“THAT my friend is the Legendary Hope Mikaelson,” Kaleb started as they watched Hope grab her backpack from the trunk, shutting it and throwing her bag over her shoulder in one smooth motion. The car lights flashing as the car locks, as Hope starts walking down the main path of the quad, “She is the ultimate Alpha, the Tribrid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you all think? Is there anything you guys really hope to see in this story? Let me know!


	3. THE Hope Mikaelson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long friends, ended up going on a spur of the moment trip that left me with little to no wifi or time to actually write. 
> 
> Like always thank you all again for checking out this story, it's very much appreciated! Apologies like always for any spelling or grammatical errors. Hope you all enjoy.

“Wait what?” MG looks up at Kaleb on his right, in almost shock before he turns his attention back to Hope who stops at the werewolves table as Jed begins talking to her. Still in disbelief, he raises his hand pointing towards Hope as he shifts his attention to the twins sitting to his left, “That girl is a Tribrid?”

 

“Yes she is. She is a combination of witch, werewolf and vampire, but she doesn’t have her full powers,” Josie states as she slaps at MG’s hand, “and would you stop pointing at her. It’s rude and you do not want Hope catching you pointing at her.” Josie basically whisper yells at him.

 

“Okay, okay! So if she is a Tribrid, where does she fit in here?” MG asks as he watches the interaction between Hope and Jed. Hope looks almost stone faced as she listens to what Jed had to say, Jed seemed a like anxious as he slightly rocked his weight from one foot to another.

 

“MG that’s THE Hope Mikaelson, she doesn’t fit in here, she runs this school!” Lizzie explains to him as they all continue to watch as Hope only speaks maybe three words to Jed before she starts to walk again and he follows close behind.

 

“Wait, Mikaelson? Why does that name sound familiar?” MG questions, it’s meant to be rhetorical but the others at the table quickly chime in.

 

“Because it should. The Mikaelson family is famous around here and especially in the supernatural world.” Lizzie begins to explain before Kaleb continues.

 

"In Mystic Falls, they are one of the founding families. To the supernatural world though they are even more famous. They are the Original family, the first family of vampires.”

 

This catches MG’s attention as he fully turns around on the bench to give the three students his full attention, “Wait seriously?”

 

“Yup but they aren’t all just vampires, Freya Mikaelson is one of the most powerful witches if not the most powerful witch alive right now and Hope’s father, Klaus Mikaelson aka the ‘Great Evil’ is the original hybrid, he’s a werewolf and a vampire. Then there is Hope’s mother Hayley Marshall, she’s a werewolf turned hybrid but she’s the werewolf packs current alpha.” Josie explains with her gaze still fixed on Hope.

 

“I thought you said Hope was the alpha.” MG comments looking between Kaleb and Lizzie, realizing Josie was only somewhat focused on their conversation.

 

“Hayley is the Alpha and Hope is pretty much second in line with the overall pack, but she is the alpha around school. She’s pretty much the connecting link for all the supernatural students here to her family.” Kaleb begins as he quickly notices the still confused look on MG’s face he continues. “Basically for the super natural community here in Mystic Falls, the Mikaelson’s run everything. They keep everyone in line but they protect everyone here as well. Nothing happens in this town without them knowing or without their approval. Like I said, Hayley runs the pack, but Freya is the head of the witch coven and Rebekah is the head of the vampires.”

 

“And Klaus Mikaelson?” MG questions thinking about the one they referred to as _The Great Evil._

 

“No one really sees him, but trust me you don’t want to see Klaus Mikaelson, because if he’s around that means someone screwed up and someone is going to die.” Kaleb tells him as a bit of a warning.

 

MG takes in a sharp breathe at Kaleb’s words as he turns his attention back to Hope who now has not only Jed but two other werewolves following behind her as they make their way closer to their table. As MG watches them pass another table the students there catch his eye, as all of them seem to be completely mesmerized by Hope and watch her every move. He looks around they quad and notices that basically everyone was just watching Hope and her little squad.

 

“Dude why do I feel like everyone is just staring at her?” MG questions keeping his eyes on the Tribrid.

 

Kaleb just shrugs as he casually answers with, “Because they are.”

 

“I swear it has to be some sort of Mikaelson trait, everyone in that family can’t go anywhere without people just staring at them, seriously everyone in that family is extremely gorgeous.” Lizzie begins to comment as she looks down at her sister sitting on the bench, in a complete trance. Lizzie smirks and releases a small chuckle before she begins to speak again. “Shoot Josie is about to start drooling in a second here.”

 

Josie gets pulled from her thoughts about Hope at her sister words and shakes her head, “Shut up Lizzie I am not!” Josie tries to defend herself as she wipes her mouth a bit paranoid with her sisters words. Realizing she wasn’t drooling, Josie turned to scowl at her sister as she slapped her on the leg.

 

“Yes you are!” Lizzie interjects laughing a little more before she continues on, “What does it even matter anyway, it’s not like you are the only one that has a crush on Hope at this school. I mean come on, she’s got everyone her wrapped around her finger here, from the supernatural to the normal students. She has that whole mystery girl vibe going for her plus she’s super hot, extremely rich and the most powerful being on earth.”

 

“Geez Lizzie it sounds like you have a crush on Hope too.” Kaleb comments giving Lizzie a look with a bit of a teasing smirk.

 

“As if, I wish I had that kind of power she holds around here, she doesn’t even have to say a word and people will do whatever she wants!” Lizzie catches MG’s attention as she taps him on the shoulder. “Look MG when it comes to Hope you are typically 1 of 3 kinds of people. You either A) want to be her.” Lizzie begin gesturing towards herself.

 

“B) you want to be with her.” She continues pointing at Josie who is clearly no longer paying attention as all her focus was back on Hope, biting her lip clearly checking out the older girl as she continues to walk closer to them.

 

“Or C) you fear her.” Lizzie finishes finally pointing at Kaleb.

 

“Whatchu pointing at me for, I don’t fear Hope.” Kaleb looks at Lizzie defensively.

 

“Sure you don’t.” Lizzie counters sarcastically with a smirk.

 

MG just chuckles at the exchange as he fully turns his attention back to the auburn haired girl walking towards them. “Why would people fear her, you said she doesn’t have her full powers? I mean she doesn’t seem that scary, okay I get she’s a tribrid but she looks like just another student around here.” MG questioned. Looking at Hope it’s true, sure, she looked like a total badass with that car and her outfit but she didn’t seem to be that intimidating. She appeared to be shorter than MG, she didn’t seem to be super buff or anything, Hope just looked like another high school student.

 

Before anyone else at the table could comment or answer MG’s question, Hope suddenly stops right next to their table causing almost everyone watching to freeze or hold their breathe, especially Josie. Her sudden stop almost causes Jed to run into her, clearly caught off guard like everyone else, he stood and watched what she was about to do. Hope takes her glasses off and ran her fingers through her hair once again as she turns to face the group at the table looking directly at MG. Her piercing blue eyes looking right through him causing a sudden chill to run down his spine. You didn’t need super hearing to hear the loud gulp sound MG made as Hope took a step closer as she gave him a once over. He could actually feel the supernatural power radiating from Hope, now he understood how people could fear this girl, she’s legit powerful. Hope stopped a few feet away from him and you would have thought MG forgot how to breathe as everyone else at the table seemed to straighten up at Hope’s presence.

 

With her sunglasses still in her hand Hope turned her attention to Kaleb as she pointed with her sunglasses between him and MG as she asked, “One of yours?”

 

“Yup just got here today.” Kaleb answered back calmly trying not to waiver with Hope’s full attention on him.

 

“New kid,” Hope started still looking at Kaleb, but she continued as she shifted her attention back to MG, “got a name?”

 

“Umm uh yeah yeah um,” MG stuttered as he stood up to take a few steps closer to the tribrid and extended his hand (that was shaking a little bit) out to her, “I’m MG.”

 

Hope smirked as she looked down at MG’s extended hand. MG could feel the sweat starting to form on his forehead, as he waited for Hope to respond. He awkwardly kept his hand extended out suddenly questioning if he was not supposed to shake hands with the Tribrid but before he could retract his hand back, Hope finally took it and gave him a firm shake. “Hope Mikaelson, but I’m guessing you already knew that.”

 

“Um yeah kind of.” MG nervously answered.

 

“Well MG, I see you’ve been left in good hands.” Hope begins as she releases MG’s hand and starts to address the others at the table. “Kaleb will make sure you know the ins and outs of the different groups around here, he’ll keep you out of trouble and tell you where to go to hear the best music. Josie is pretty much one of the smartest people in this place and co-captain of the soccer team.And if you want to have a good time, Lizzie, our head cheerleader knows about every possible social event going on around here.”

 

All of them look at Hope a bit shocked, not really expecting for her to compliment them like that let alone acknowledge that she does in fact know who they are, but it also made them curious about just how much she knew about all of them. Josie can feel her cheeks starting to heat up by Hope’s words and the slight smile that was on her lips when she spoke about her.

 

“You see MG, I know everything that goes on around here, especially when it comes to people like us.” Hope states taking a step closer to him. MG could feel the nervous sweat starting to form again as Hope’s demeanor changes and he slowly started to retreat back to the table. “We have a system around here I’m sure these three will make sure you are well aware of if they haven’t already. It’s a good thing we’ve got going here and I’m not going to let anyone or anything screw that up for us.” Hope takes a couple more steps closer to MG as the back of his legs hit the bench he was once sitting on.

 

“I protect our own by any means necessary.” Hope adds, now only inches away from MG who has now shrunk down onto the bench behind him. Now with Hope basically towering over him she whispers to him her warning. “Don’t fuck this up MG, I’d really hate to have to kill you.” She tells him as her eyes flash gold and her signature Mikaelson smirk appears on her lips.

 

“Understood?” Hope asks as she takes a small step back, her eyes returning to their normal ocean blue color.

 

“Ye-yes! Yes um yeah I gotcha 100%” MG nervously answers as he quickly nods his head up and down. 

 

“Good,” Hope responds, her smirk softening into more of a smile. A slight chill runs down everyones spines at the table from Hope’s words. MG and Kaleb clearly scared by Hope’s words, Lizzie a bit in awe, and Josie was pretty sure Hope just majorly turned her on because this side of Hope was extremely hot! Josie can’t stop herself from biting her lip once again as she watches Hope’s movements.

 

Jed suddenly takes a few quick steps towards Hope while he looks down at his phone with concern, “Hey Hope we got to go.”

 

Hope’s posture straightens a little at Jed’s words, “Conner?” Hope asks over her shoulder.

 

“Yeah, him and his guys jumped Landon, right when Raf turned down the hall and he saw it all. DJ and Ashton had to hold him back.”

 

A sudden growl escapes past Hope’s lips as she clenches her teeth, “One of these days I swear Jed,” Hope begins as she takes a step and opens herself up to face Jed with a stern look, eyes glowing once again. “If you can’t help Raf keep his anger issues under control you better tell me right now Jed, we will deal with Connor but Raf needs to be our concern.” Jed’s head quickly drops in a silent apology.

 

“I need your help, I feel like I’ve done everything I can but none of it is working. I don’t know what else to do. I’m sorry Hope.” Jed can’t look Hope in the eyes as he asks for help, keeping his head bowed down to her.

 

Hope takes a deep breathe and slowly releases it as she rolls her shoulders back, she places her hand on Jed’s shoulder. A silent command for him to lift his head and look her in the eyes, “Alright let’s go.”

 

Hope tilted her head towards the school directing Jed to start walking that way with the other wolves before she turns back to the table, “Well good luck with your first day MG. Kaleb, Lizzie,” she addresses everyone at the table with a slight nod, then she gets to Josie, and the tone of her voice softens a little. “Josie.” Hope smirks as she nods at Josie and gives her a wink. Josie immediately feels her cheeks go flush as Hope holds her gaze for a few extra moments, but it doesn’t take long before Josie is smirking back at her.

 

As Hope puts her sunglasses back on she turns to MG one last time, “Oh and MG you might want to invest in a better wardrobe, don’t want people around here thinking you’re a total loser.” Hope comments as she turns to walk away with that signature smirk on her lips.

 

MG’s mouth drops a little as he looks down at his shirt and before he can even process what he’s doing he stands from his seat and calls out to Hope defensively, “What’s wrong with my green lantern tee, do y’all not like superheroes around here?”

 

Hope continues walking towards the school but simply calls out over her shoulder, “No but you choose one of the lamest DC superheroes ever, you gotta upgrade to Marvel.” 

 

MG stood there almost in shock as he and the rest of the students watched Hope enter the school and disappear into the halls. With Hope gone, the quad is once again filled with conversations and students moving about.

 

The three supernaturals all start to laugh at MG who still hasn’t moved still staring at the front entrance of the school. It wasn’t until Lizzie asks him a question does MG turn back to the group. “So which one of the 3 are you MG?” Lizzie asks referring back to her earlier statement.

 

MG still seems to be in shock trying to comprehend everything that just happened as he takes his seat back at the table. “I think I’m a combo of all 3 honestly, or can there be a 4th option, can she be my best friend?”

 

“That’s not an option MG.” Josie answers a little defeated or maybe disappointment laced in her voice.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Hope Mikaelson doesn’t do friends. Another Mikaelson family trait, they don’t really let people into their inner circle, not that easily anyways. If your last name isn’t Mikaelson then they will keep at an arms length or even father, they don’t really trust anyone unless you’re family or you’ve known them forever. Believe me, we’ve tried.” Lizzie answered with that same hint of disappointment in her voice as Josie’s. Lizzie looked down to see Josie looking back towards the front door once again. Lizzie’s heart breaks a little thinking about what happened between the twins and Hope when they were younger, it breaks her heart thinking of what could have been especially knowing her sister’s feeling for the tribrid.

 

MG notices the change in the twins demeanor at this conversation and decides not to question it, at least not now, that seems like a conversation for a much later time. Before MG can change the subject, the first bell of the day sounds, indicating classes start in about 15 minutes.

 

“Well we should get you inside and situated MG.” Kaleb states indicating to the rest that they should start moving.

 

“Yeah do you have your class schedule and locker figured out.” Josie asks as they start to walk towards the front doors.

 

“Um yeah here,” MG hands Josie a crumpled up piece of paper from his pocket.

 

Josie scans over the piece of paper, “Well MG lucky for you, it looks like you have at least one of us in every single one of your classes and we all share the same lunch period.” Josie informs him with a smile which causes him to smile right back.

 

“Sweet okay so what do I have first?” MG asks a bit more excited now knowing he won’t be alone in any of his classes.

 

“You are off to history with Kaleb.” Josie tells him as she hands over the piece of paper.

 

“Yo let’s gooo,” Kaleb says as he throws his arm over MG’s shoulder, “follow me.”

 

As the four walk into the now crowded halls all MG can do is smile as he looks at his new friends and thinks, _Maybe today will be a good day, maybe Mystic Falls is where I’m meant to be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so what do you all think? Thank you all so much again for the love and comments!
> 
> So I just wanted to let you all know, I'll be leaving on a two week trip to Europe this coming Saturday so I won't be able to write or post anything until I get back. I'm trying to add another chapter to all of my on-going stories by this Friday so I can leave you all with so content before I'm off! If not well then I'm sorry but my stories won't be updated for at least 3 weeks. Sorry but hopefully I'll be able to leave you all with some good Hosie content before I leave!


	4. Back The F*** Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo another update!
> 
> As always, thank you for clicking on this story, apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors, and I hope you all enjoy!

As far as Mondays go, this one hadn’t been so bad for MG. He was pretty nervous coming into school for his first day but Josie, Lizzie and Kaleb had all made it go by a lot smoother than he expected. Luckily for him Josie was right, he had at least one of his three new friends in each one of his classes. First he had History with Kaleb, next it was Chemistry with Lizzie, then it was English Lit with both of the twins and now thankfully they all had the same lunch period. The four of them had all been laughing, joking around and getting to know MG a little better while also telling him more about themselves and what it was like to go to school here. Lunch was starting to wind down when Lizzie speaks up, once again referring back to their morning conversation.

 

“Okay I’m just going to ask you one more time Jo, are you absolutely sure we can’t have your back if she-who-shall-not-be-named pulls some dirty shit in tonight’s game?” Lizzie asks with a bit of a pout directed towards Josie.

 

“No Lizzie,” Josie just shakes her head at her twin once again, “you know the rules and I want to beat her fair and square.” This causes the two to start bickering to the point where both boys have no idea what is being said, then finally MG speaks up.

 

“Okay I’m sorry but I have to ask,” MG interjects into the conversation watching the sisters interactions, “who are y’all talking about exactly?”

 

Josie lets out a sigh as she ran her fingers thru her hair, “My ex Penelope, she’s the captain for Ravenscroft and their star forward.”

 

“And a total bitch.” Lizzie adds in as she takes another bite of her sandwich. Josie gives her a look and Lizzie just shrugs it off as she finishes her lunch.

 

“So I’m guessing things did not end well?” MG asks a bit hesitant feeling the mood change.

 

Without looking up from her food Josie answered, “Nope.” With a little added emphasis popping the “P”, not really wanting to elaborate but Lizzie was quick to add in.

 

“She cheated on Josie at this party, that we were all at, made out with this girl right where everyone could see them on the dance floor.” You could hear the hint of hatred in Lizzie’s voice.

 

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry Josie that sucks.” MG tells her sincerely, placing his hand on her wrist so she would look up at him. She smiled up at him and pat his hand, a silent reassurance that she was alright and appreciated the gesture.

 

Lizzie on the other hand was still heated about the topic and turns now to Kaleb, “I still can’t believe you didn’t let me beat the shit out of her Kaleb.”

 

Kaleb just raised his eyebrow at her and laughed before he responded, “Girl, you popped her right in the face like twice and it was a party filled with regular students, I wasn’t risking y’all having an all out magical fight in that mess.”

 

“That didn’t stop Josie from setting her on fire.” Lizzie commented.

 

Josie released an exasperated sigh, “For the last time, I’m telling you it wasn’t me!”

 

“Jo fire is your go to.” Lizzie added looking at her like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“Still doesn’t mean I’m the one that did it, I was so heart broken I couldn’t even think straight let alone do any sort of spells.” Josie defends, with this hurt look in her eyes, thinking back on that night. Josie was devastated, Penelope had been her first serious relationship and things seemed to be going so well. Well that literally went up in flames when she found Penelope, who said she was home sick, with her tongue down this blonde girls throat in the middle of the dance floor.

 

Lizzie softened a bit at Josie’s words and the look in her twins eyes. She know’s her Ex was still a touchy subject and she didn’t mean to bring it up in this way. Lizzie looked at her sister as she thought back on itand had to admit it really didn’t make sense for Josie to be the one to set Penelope on fire. After they caught Penelope, Josie practically sprinted out of the room and before Penelope could try and go after her, Lizzie had gotten two good shots to the Raven haired girls face just before Kaleb picked her up and dragged her out of the room to go find Josie.

 

“Okay well whoever did it, I owe them a thank you.” Lizzie finally comments. There is a bit of an awkward silence that falls over takes them before Lizzie breaks it once again, “Soooo…no magic?”

 

This causes a small smile to appear on Josie’s lips knowing exactly what her sister was doing, she chuckles a bit as she looks over at Lizzie who’s just smiling at her, “No magic.”

 

“Fiiiiine.” Lizzie responds, draws it out a bit jokingly letting the topic go. Before they could start on a new topic of discussion the bell rings ending their lunch period.

 

Lizzie and Kaleb say their goodbyes as they head off to their respective classes leaving MG and Josie to clean up before they head off to study hall.

 

“Alright MG ready to head to the library?” Josie asks as they start walking to the front doors, throwing her backpack over her shoulder.

 

“Yeah let me just hit up the bathroom real quick, it’s that way right?” MG asks pointing behind him.

 

“Yeah just past the water fountains over there,” Josie starts directing him, “I’ll be right here.” MG just gives her a thumbs up as he starts to jog off in the direction Josie had instructed him to go. Josie pulls out her phone and keeps herself busy by scrolling through her social media, totally unaware of her surroundings. That’s why she practically jumps out of her skin at the sudden sound of her name.

 

“Hey Josie,” Conner catches her off guard, coming up from behind her putting his hand on her lower back.

 

Josie shudders at his touch and immediately shoves him away, “Back off Conner!”

 

“Oh come on Josie, don’t be like that.” Conner tries to defend with this smug look on his face taking a step closer to her.

 

Josie just looks at him with a glare as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “No Conner, leave me alone. I’ve already told you, we’re not gonna happen.” she tells him sternly.

 

“Why not? Come on, Captain of the football team and captain of the soccer team, we are Athlete royalty, give me one reason for us not becoming an item.”

 

For a moment Josie thought she was actually going to laugh in his face, instead she just shook her head in disbelief. Trying to remain calm as she answered, “How about the fact you tried to sleep with my sister when she was drunk.”

 

“What she wanted it?” Again Conner tried to defend himself, as if he couldn’t sound anymore like a douchebag than he already did.

 

This just made Josie’s blood boil, she didn’t want to make a scene but Conner was definitely making it very difficult, she just scoffed at his words as she answered, “No she didn’t, she was drunk and even then she still said no!”

 

“Oh come on Josie I-“ Conner started but was cut off by a voice from behind Josie.

 

“Hey dude Josie said back off.” MG tells the Football player as he steps up right next to Josie.

 

“Mind your own business this doesn’t concern you new kid.” Conner tells him as he shoves MG to the ground. MG wasn’t expecting the shove and actually hit the ground pretty hard.

 

“MG you okay?” Josie turns and kneels down to him, knowing in the back of her mind he would be okay thanks to his vampire powers but the look on his face indicated he was caught off guard. Before either could say or do anything else, Conner was pulling Josie up by her left wrist to stand face to face with him as he spoke again.

 

“Josie come on, can you really blame me for hitting on your sister, y’all are twins and the hottest girls in this school.” As Conner speaks Josie can feel her anger rising, as Conner just kept pissing her off more and more, Josie tried to control herself but she could feel her hand starting to clench into a fist. MG just watched from his spot on the ground when movement from the werewolf table catches his attention. Josie is about to say something back when someone else cuts in.

 

“Conner, I think you need to walk away.” Hope’s voice catches both Conner and Josie’s attention, neither one of them aware she had made her way over to them.

 

Conner looks over his shoulder with an annoyed look on his face as he acknowledges the girls presence, “This doesn’t concern you Mikaelson.”

 

“Oh I know,” Hope starts as she takes a few steps closer to them, her hands tucked away in her jacket pockets, seeming very cool and casual, “I’m just warning you to back off because by that clenched fist Josie has right now, I’m pretty sure she’s about to punch you in the face.” Hope adds looking down at Josie’s right hand.

 

Conner doesn’t bother looking, very sure Josie would never do such a thing, he just smirks at Hope, “Josie wouldn’t do that.”

 

It was Hope’s turn to smirk at him, with a little laugh she looks down at the ground before looking back up at the football player, “Yeah you’re right, she wouldn’t risk hurting her hand on that cinder block head of yours.”

 

She can tell she struck a cord as Hope notices how Conner clenches his jaw, which only makes her smile more. Hope takes two more steps and stops only two feet away from the pair. “I mean personally at your current position I bet she would kick you in the balls right now. Especially with her being Co-Captain of the soccer team, ooooh yeah that definitely would hurt so much worst.”

 

This caused Conner to involuntarily close his legs and take a step away from Josie, he shook his head as he turned his full attention to Hope, turning so now they were face to face. “What do you want Mikaelson?”

 

Hope looked Conner dead in eyes, not flinching at all by Conner’s movements, again she smiles at him as she spoke, “I want you to back the fuck off Conner.” Hope shrugged her shoulders causing her jacket to fall down her arms, catching it in her hands and tossing it onto the near by table, never breaking eye contact.

 

Conner actually laughs in Hope’s face, “Yeah and why would I do that huh, what are you gonna do?” He jabs his finger into her shoulder, causing Hope’s eyes to follow his hand. With her vision still looking down, Hope’s jaw drops open as her tongue swipes over her bottom row of teeth. As she looks back up, Hope glances at Josie over Conner’s shoulder, their eyes meeting for the first time during this whole exchange. Without even saying a word, Josie knows exactly what’s running through Hope’s mind, she takes a few steps back pulling MG up with her, giving Hope some room.

 

That signature Mikaelson smirk makes its way back onto Hope’s lips as she sees Josie moving out of the way, she tilts her head a little and looks Conner in the eyes once again as she speaks very calmly, “Don’t touch me Conner.”

 

Conner just laughs with that smug look on his face, as he jabs Hope in the shoulder with each word he says, “What. Are. You. Goi-“

 

Before anyone even realized what was happening, Hope grabbed Conner’s hand and flipped him over her shoulder. Conner hit the ground with a loud thud, knocking the air out of his lungs the second his back hit the ground. With his hand still in her grasp, Hope moves her left hand down to his forearm and twists. Conner released an audible yelp at the sudden motion but before he could struggle out of Hope’s grip, her boot was firmly on his throat.

 

“Move and I’m popping your arm out of your shoulder.” Hope instructs him and Conner instantly freezes. “Now the next time I tell you to back off, you’re going to back off, is that understood?” Conner nods his head slightly as that’s all he can manage to do.

 

“Good. Oh and before you get any bright ideas like trying to go to the principal or someone else to get me reported just remember this,” Hope begins as she leans forward bending at her waist to get a little closer to Conner without loosening her grip on his arm, “you’re not the only one connect around here Conner.” Hope says it in a bit of a menacing way as she looks down at Conner.

 

“Besides I’ve got a quad full of witnesses who will all agree I was acting in self defense. I told you to stop and you didn’t, so how do you think this will all work out for you? Plus do you really want to admit that I kicked your ass so easily, how would that look, everyone finding out Conner got his ass whooped by a girl who was barely even trying.” Hope can see the look of realization but also frustration in Conner’s eyes. He raises his left hand up to Hope’s boot to try and push it off but she push pushes down a little hard, “Ah ah, I wouldn’t do that.”

 

Conner starts to feel it becoming a lot harder to breathe and begins to tap on Hope’s foot begging for her to ease up. Hope slowly loosen up the pressure from his neck as she begins to speak again, “Now I think you owe MG and Josie an apology for being such a dick.” Hope states as she takes the full weight of her foot away from Conner’s throat so he could speak.

 

Conner coughs for a moment trying to catch his breathe, once he’s settled down he glances up at Josie and MG but doesn’t look at them as he mutters a weak, “I’m sorry.”

 

As a result Hope begins to turn Conners arm a little harder, “What was that?”

 

“Ah! I’m Sorry! I’m Sorry! I’m Sorry!” Conner calls out in pain and a bit of panicked, scared Hope was actually going to pop his shoulder. Hope holds him there in place and looks up at Josie and MG. Well more like she looks at Josie, she looks at her as if waiting for the younger girls approval of his apology. Josie barely nods at her, not taking her eyes away from Hope’s, causing Hope to finally release her grip of Conner.

 

Conner a bit dramatically rolls a few feet away from Hope and clutches at his shoulder as he tries to recompose himself and catch his breathe, the pain in his shoulder still evident. Conner slowly gets back up on his feet ready to glare at Hope and try and threaten her back but he quickly notices the group of about eight people standing behind her. Hope didn’t even need to turn and look to know members of the wolf pack had come to her defense, even though everyone clearly knew she didn’t need the help. Conner tries to straighten himself up as he holds onto his right shoulder, he looks over at MG and Josie with a glare but when he starts to turn and walk away he catches Hope’s gaze. If looks could kill Conner was certain he would be dead on the ground right now, so he quickly averts his gaze and walks away towards the other side of the quad.

 

Hope watches as he walks away until Jed gets her attention as he steps up next to her. “Hope,” Jed starts as he hands her, her leather jacket. Hope turns her attention to him for a moment before gaze falls back towards Conner, she takes her jacket and shakes it out with a loud snap sound like a whip, before she throws it back on.

 

The quad was deathly silent just watching the whole exchange, all eyes on Hope as she watched Conner. Hope quickly shifts her gaze towards the rest of the quad and everyone else seems to jump as they were clearly caught staring. Everyone seemed to have this same look of fear like they were little kids who were caught red handed with their hands in the cookie jar. All of the other students quickly look away and try to busy themselves, scared of what could happen next. Hope just smirks at their reactions and shakes her head until Jed speaks up again.

 

“You know he’s not going to let this go right?”

 

“If he was smart he would, but we both now he isn’t.” Hope answers and it actually causes Jed to laugh, “But now he knows, his actions are going to have consequences.”

 

“Well you know the pack is ready whenever you give the word.” Jed tells her, itching at the chance to give Conner and his lackeys a much needed beating. Hope finally pulls her gaze away from Conner and turns to Jed, her eyes flashing gold as she gives him a nod. His eyes flash gold in response and bows his head before he turns to the rest of the wolves directing them to head back to their table.

 

Josie and MG had just stood behind them all and watched everything unfold in awe. Before MG could do or say anything Josie started making her way towards Hope. She takes a breathe as she stops a few feet behind her.

 

"You didn’t have to do that you know, I was handling it fine on my own.” As hot as it was to see Hope get all protective over her and how easily Hope beat Conner, Josie was a little frustrated. She wasn’t some sort of damsel in distress who needed saving, she didn’t ask for help, she didn’t need it and for some reason she needed to make that clear to Hope.

 

Hope smiled as she turned to Josie who stood behind her with her arms once again crossed in front of her chest like she was standing her ground. Hope’s whole demeanor seemed to changed, from just moments ago, she was suddenly more laid back as she slowly took a step closer to the younger girl. “I know I didn’t, but Conner has been a pain in the ass lately, causing too many problems I’ve had to clean up and I needed to set him straight. You just happened to create a perfect opportunity for me to do that, so thank you for that.” She states as she stops a foot in front of Josie, “By the way I know you are more than capable of taking care of yourself Jo. But I wasn’t kidding before, Conner’s head is a legit cement brick, wouldn’t want you breaking your hand because of his hard head, even if it would have been a satisfying moment.”Hope had taken Josie’s hand in hers and ran her thumb across her knuckles where Josie would have made contact with Conner’s face if she would have punched him.

 

Josie almost forgot how to breathe, surprised by Hope’s actions, her eyes like Hope’s had fallen down towards their now joined hands. Hope ran her thumb across her knuckles a few more times before she released it and spoke again ,causing Josie to look her back in the eyes. “Plus you know I figured it wouldn’t be a good look if our captain and star player got in trouble for punching someone in the face before the big game, wouldn’t want to ruin our chances for winning just because Conner was being a typical jackass.”

 

Josie suddenly feels upset with herself, not thinking about what would have happened if she actually would have punched Conner. She’s always prided herself on being the level headed one when it comes to a lot of situations, like when she is on the pitch, but her she was about to put herself in a position to hurt her teams chances of winning. Josie looks down as she rubs the back of her neck, “Yeah I probably wouldn’t forgive myself for that. Thank you for stepping in Hope.”

 

“Like I said this morning, I protect our own.” Hope tells her, with a small smile. Hope sticks her hands back into her jacket pockets as she slowly starts to back up from Josie. Before she turns to walk away Hope looks Josie in the eyes one last time as she speaks, “Good luck tonight Jo.”

 

Josie is frozen for a moment just watching Hope walk away, when she is suddenly hit with this wave of courage and she starts to jog after Hope. “Hey Hope,” Josie starts as she grabs onto the older girls arm, wrapping her fingers around her bicep causing Hope to stop in her track and turn her attention to her. Josie feels her cheeks get warm as she subconsciously squeezes Hope’s bicep and the thought of her strong arms wrapped around Josie quickly flashes thru her mind. Josie shakes her head and quickly pulls her hand away from Hope as she starts to speak again. “Umm are you going to come to the game tonight? I mean it is our big rivalry game and you know everyone is going to be there.”

 

Hope smirks at Josie and it automatically causes the brunette to bite her lip, “Everyone’s going huh?” Hope starts tilting her head a little like she was seriously contemplating the decision. “Well then, I guess you have my answer. See you later Jo.” Hope confirms her answer with a wink as she once again turns away from Josie and heads back to the werewolves table.

 

MG slowly made his way next to Josie, his eyes jumping between Hope’s retreating form and his new friend. When he finally stood next to her, he nudged her with his shoulder. “Damn Saltzman. I know I’ve only been here for half a day but I’m pretty sure Hope has a thing for you.” MG comments teasingly, although very much serious.

 

He turns his attention to Josie who was still staring at Hope, clearly not hearing a word he just said. _Man this girl has got it bad._ MG finally waves his hand in front of Josie’s face once again trying to get her attention. “Jooooosiiiiie?”

 

Josie shakes he head once again as she turns to MG, “Umm yeah.”

 

"You good?” MG questions with a knowing smile on his face.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Josie starts taking one last look over at Hope, who she catches looking right back at her. Josie smiles and bites her lip at the older girl before she looks down, with a new blush on her face. She looks back up at MG who’s still smirking at her knowingly. This causes Josie to shove his shoulder as she turns back towards the front doors, “let’s get to the library already.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright friends, so like I said last chapter I'm about to be out of the country for the next 2-3 weeks, so unfortunately the next update for this story won't be posted until after I've gotten back.
> 
> In the meantime, please leave me any new story ideas or things you would want to see happen in this story. Although I might not be able to post I will have some free time to write (hopefully). So please leave me some ideas to help keep me busy during these LOOONG flights i'm about to be on.
> 
> Anyway thanks again for reading! And hopefully you will all stick around and continue to read my stuff when I get back!


	5. Game On Bitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! Guess who found wifi!! For real, thank you all so much for the love and comments so far with this story. Y'all are so awesome and I really didn't want to keep you waiting 3+ weeks for some sort of update with any of my stories so here is something that will hold you all over for about 2 more weeks potentially 😬. 
> 
> Anyway with the World Cup going on right now, it felt appropriate to post the soccer game chapter! 
> 
> As always, thank you for clicking on this story, apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors, and I hope you all enjoy!

 

When Josie said everyone was coming to their game she wasn’t exaggerating, the bleachers were already filled with fellow students and people from town, you would have thought it was a Friday night football game and not the varsity girls soccer team playing. It was a big game though so it’s understandable why so many people would show up. Ravenscroft was their big rival from the town next door, so everyone who went to Mystic Falls High knew about this rivalry and more than likely had their fair share of history in it. From football to the debate team, whenever these two school competed it was always a big deal. This game though seemed to hold some extra weight behind it. Not only was it the first time these two have played since last years conference championship, which Mystic Falls had won, but now Josie’s Ex had transferred there last spring and had become their star forward and Captain. To say there was bad blood going into this game was a major understatement.

 

Even during warmups the tension could be felt on the pitch, for a lot of the girls on the Mystic Falls team, they felt like Penelope had betrayed them. Not only because she left and went to their biggest rival but because EVERYONE knew what she did to Josie. All of that didn’t matter to Josie though and she had told the team that in the locker room.

 

Josie was that kind of leader that every coach would want on their team. She lead by example, day in and day out, constantly putting the work in and always giving it everything she had. She pushed her teammates and helped them get better, all without belittling them or embarrassing them in front of the rest of the team when they looked like shit. Josie didn’t care for any spot light and she honestly didn’t really care for the title of captain, she didn’t really want that unspoken power that comes with it. Josie cared more about how the team did and making her teammates look good rather than have any of the attention put on herself. She was the kind of player her teammates wanted to do well for, who they wanted to win for, so when Josie told them not to worry about Penelope and just play their game they all listened. This game was too important to be worried about the petty nonsense that has happened off the field, they needed to win if they want to be first in their conference and set themselves up for another championship and to Josie that’s all that mattered.

 

If you were to watch Josie in their warmups you could tell the girl was seriously locked in, every shot she took on goal was on target, every pass was sharp and on point. It was like Josie was in her own little world completely unaware of everything around her including all the cheers already coming from the stands. Well that was until her teammates pass in their final warm up drills to her was just a little too high for Josie to make a play on for a goal, so she had to chase after it as it rolled on the track behind the goal. As Josie went to pick up the ball and was about to turn back towards the field, auburn hair and ocean blue eyes catch her attention. She basically had to do a double take as she spots Hope watching her from where she stood, leaning up against one of the old oak trees between the field and the parking lot. Hope’s attention was fully on Josie with her arms crossed in front of her chest and that smirk on her lips. Josie can’t help the huge smile that makes its way onto her face from seeing Hope standing there. If she was being honest, even after the whole “fight” situation that happened at lunch Josie wasn’t 100% confident that Hope was going to actually show up for their game, but there she was.

 

The two had locked eyes and time almost felt like it stood still, Josie’s mind suddenly racing because Hope showed up for her, well at least that’s what it seemed like. Before her mind could start thinking of all of the other possible reasons for why Hope was there however, Josie noticed Hope untangling her arms as she stuck her left hand in her jacket pocket, she lifts up her right hand and moves (wiggles? Don’t know a better way to describe it) her fingers as a subtle wave. Josie responds back with a shy wave of her own that causes Hope to actually smile instead of her usual smirk and as a result Josie can feel her own cheeks heat up. She’s pretty sure she could stare at Hope all day but Josie is pulled from their little moment at the sound of her co-captain calling out to her.

 

“Hey Josie come on, captains meeting.” AJ calls out to her before she starts heading towards mid field.

 

Josie nods back at her before she looks back at Hope one last time, the older girl simply waves her hand at her as she mouths “Go on!” With one last smile towards Hope, Josie turns back towards the field and jogs over to catch up with AJ. The two girls approach midfield to meet with the referee and the Ravenscroft captains, Penelope and this senior named Bri. After all the typical formalities of the rules and figuring out who gets the ball on what side, they break to head back to their respected benches. Before they turn to go, Josie and AJ shake the referees hand, then as Josie extends her hand to shake Bri’s, Penelope grabs her teammates hand and lowers it. She glares at Josie and AJ for a moment then this smug smile makes its way on her face as she pulls her fellow captain away from the two girls and back to their own bench. Josie and AJ stand there for a brief moment almost stunned by Penelope’s actions, they both look at each other questioning if that just happened, AJ raising her eyebrow looking at Josie like _the fuck just happened?_

 

With that competitive glint in both of their eyes, AJ releases a small laugh, “Oh its on.” Josie just smiles as she pats AJ on the shoulder and they both turn to jog back to their teammates already huddled up waiting for them. With some final words from their coach they break their huddle and the starters take the field. As Josie jogs out to take her spot on the field she goes about her usual routine of pregame handshakes, first starting off with her fellow captain and ending with her air high five with her goalkeeper. Before Josie turns around back to mid field however the empty spot next to the oak tree catches her attention, with Hope no longer standing there. Josie’s shoulders physically droop from loosing sight of Hope, _maybe she had to leave, yeah she probably left why would she have stayed anyway? But wait no I can still see her car in the parking lot. Okay maybe she’s just in the bathroom or actually took a seat in the stands, she probably-_

 

“Hey Josie, you good? You spaced out for a second there.” Josie shook her head at the sudden voice filling her ears, she turns and looks at her teammate Sammy, a fellow midfielder(and only werewolf on the team) who has a bit of a concerned look on her face.

 

Josie just smiles at her, “Yeah, yeah I’m good.” Josie answers refocusing on the field in front of them. “Let’s do this.” She fist bumps Sammy just as the whistle blows to indicate the game has begun.

 

—————————————————————————————————————————

 

It had been a rough first 30 minutes to say the least, both teams had been aggressive fighting for possession of the ball and to get some sort of advantage. It seemed like every few minutes someone was on the ground from some sort of challenge, but so far it had been a relatively clean game, which of course meant it wasn’t going to last.

 

Josie was dribbling the ball up the right side of the field when she suddenly felt a searing pain shoot up her left leg as her legs were taken out from under her, causing Josie to nearly flip before she hit the ground hard. Josie gasped for air as she lay on her back, the impact from the ground knocking the oxygen from her lungs. As she tried to catch her breath she rolled onto her right side and practically curled up into a ball, now fully feeling the pain in her leg. With her face in the grass Josie gripped at her left shin and calf with her left hand as she pounded her right fist into the ground out of pain and frustration. Josie tried to take a couple deep breathes as she felt a few of her teammates make it to her side, she tried to calm herself down as she listened to the uproar of boos and angry shouts from the stands over the dirty slide tackle. Josie looked up to the crowd and instantly was met with the sight of her sister and all of her friends right up on the chain link fence yelling at someone on the field, Josie couldn’t tell who it was directed to or what was being said as she was too distracted by the pain in her leg. At the sound of the referees whistle, Josie looked over to see who the offender was, as she watched as the referee presented Penelope with the yellow card.

 

She watched as Penelope argued with the referee trying to claim it wasn’t a dirty slide tackle. Josie can’t say she’s surprised Penelope would play a little dirty and rough her up along with some of her teammate but this… oh now Josie was pissed. Josie rolled onto her back and tried to sit up as she heard the school trainer running up to her, she finally looked down to see if her leg was as bad as it felt. Penelope had slid into her spikes up and hit her just at the right angle to cause her to bleed. By the amount of blood soaked into her sock you would have thought Penelope had on track spikes, now Josie was livid and more determined than ever to make sure they won this game. After the trainer was finished cleaning up her leg and bandaging it up, Josie threw on a new clean sock and tried to stand with AJ helping to pull her up. There was still a slight sting in her leg and now she felt more restricted in her movements but Josie had already decided she was going to play through it. With her hand on AJ’s shoulder for support, Josie moved and flexed her foot around double checking that the bandages weren’t too tight and that she would actually be able to run. She gave a thumbs up to the trainer and kept her other hand on AJ’s shoulder when she felt some one bump past her.

 

Josie glared at Penelope when she realizes it was her, and she just looked back at Josie with that smug look as she walked backwards just staring her and AJ down. “Come on JoJo, walk it off, or are you just going to walk out on your team when things get tough.” Penelope called out to her, just trying to take another dig at her ex.

 

Josie may not have been the one who set Penelope on fire at that party but right now Josie was more than ready to set her a flame. Josie took a few hard steps towards Penelope that caused AJ and Sammy to practically hold Josie back, “Excuse me, what did you just say to me?”

 

Penelope smirked, proud she was able to get under Josie’s skin and commented again now trying to get into the brunettes head, “You heard me Jojo, just run away and quit on them like you quit on us.”

 

Josie had to bite her cheek, she had a flurry of emotions running through her right now and she was ready to explode. How the hell was she going to claim that Josie was the one that gave up on their relationship, now Josie was seeing red and it seemed like her mind was anywhere but on the soccer field. It wasn’t until she felt this gentle squeeze on her shoulder did Josie come back down to reality as she looked at AJ standing by her side with this stern look. It wasn’t like she was looking at Josie like she was pissed at her fellow captain, it was more like a _I know what you are thinking but don’t do it, let’s just win._ Josie took a deep breath and looked back up at Penelope, “You know what, game on bitch.”

 

As AJ and Sammy gave Penelope a few more death glares, Josie started to walk back to kick off the game once again, she looked back up to the crowd giving them a thumbs up indicating she was alright. A cheer erupted from the crowd with shouts like, "GO JOSIE! YOU GOT THIS! YEAH JOSIE!” could distinctly be heard. Josie’s eyes scanned the crowd until a lone person standing off the the side next to the ramp to the bleachers caught her eye, as her brown eyes were met with bright golden ones. Hope had this look on her face like the was ready to murder someone, her jaw and fists clenched with her arms crossed in front of her chest. For some reason seeing Hope like this didn’t scare Josie it actually made her feel relaxed, she felt safe because she new that anger wasn’t directed at her but the person who hurt her. Some how she thinks Hope noticed this, as Josie can see Hope slowly relax as well, their eyes never leaving the others as Hope’s eyes start to dull and shift back from their golden glow to their normal ocean blue. Hope’s eyes not only change in color but in demeanor as they go from rage to concern as Hope mouth’s an “Are you okay?”

 

A shy smile appears on Josie’s face as she simply nods and throws Hope a thumbs up, causing the older girl to give her a small smile back. Hope simply shakes her head clearly knowing Josie was too stubborn to sit this game out as she could see that look of determination in her eyes. So Hope looks Josie in the eyes once again and claps for her in a subtle, _Alright let’s go,_ sort of way.

 

It’s Josie’s turn to smirk back at Hope as this new surge of confidence over takes her. She’s in her element, she’s in her space where she is the most conformable, she’s where she is the happiest, and the girl she’s been crushing on for what feels like forever is actually here watching her play. Josie throws a quick wink at Hope and watches as the older girls mouth drops open a little before she turns back around just as the referee jogs over to her and indicates to resume the game.

 

With 5 minutes left in the first half Josie starts to sprint back to defense as she spots Penelope steal the ball and manage to get by one of their defenders on the other side of the field. As she slips by another defender Josie notices that smug look on Penelope’s face, overly confident that she was about to score on them. The two make eye contact as Penelope sees Josie approaching but before Penelope could do anything the raven haired girl trips and falls flat on her face practically eating grass as she loses the ball in the process. Without hesitation Josie takes possession of the ball and takes it back up the field. Josie quickly looks up to see AJ with her hand up asking for the ball and Josie sends a beautiful cross as AJ makes a run towards the goal. The timing perfect on both sides as AJ jumps up in the air and redirects the ball towards the goal getting it just past the goal keepers outstretched arms giving the Timber wolves the first goal of the game. AJ immediately sprints back towards Josie and jumps into her arms in celebration as the rest of the team followed forming a giant group hug around their captains.

 

As things start to settle and they all started to jog back to their spots Josie looked over to a very pissed off Penelope who was still wiping chunks of grass off of her face. It causes Josie to release a small laugh but its quickly gone once she realized that Penelope probably didn’t just simply trip over her own feet. Someone had to have cast a spell which just annoyed Josie because all of the witches knew the rules and knew Josie said not to interfere.

 

Just as Josie made it back to her starting spot on the field she quickly looked up at Lizzie with a disapproving look, understandably believing Lizzie had been the cause of her Ex’s face plant but Lizzie quickly raised her hands up in defense immediately knowing what was running through her sisters head. She looked at Josie sincerely and mouthed, _it wasn’t me,_ before looking around at the other witches around her and they all shook their heads. Lizzie just looked at Josie and shrugged indicating she had no idea who did it but it clearly was none of them. This had Josie thrown for a loop as she quickly started scanning the stands wondering who it was who could have done it, then she finally let her eyes fall on Hope who was still standing off to the side of the bleachers.

 

That damn smirk plaster on her face, as their eyes met once again a thought ran through Josie’s mind, _wait Hope wouldn’t have, no Hope wouldn’t, would she?_ As if Hope could hear Josie’s thoughts or she was just that good at reading Josie’s facial expressions, Hope’s smirk got a little wider as she winked back at Josie.

 

Josie’s mouth dropped in disbelief, she never would have thought Hope Mikaelson would break one of their biggest rules about using magic and she never would have thought she would do it for her. Before Ravenscroft could kick off the whistle blows signaling the end of the half and both teams return to their benches for halftime.

 

————————————————————————————————————————

 

The second half of the game pretty much continues on like the first, both sides struggling to keep possession of the ball as the physical play of the game seemed to get tougher. Each team determined to score, the Timber Wolves trying to extend their lead while the Ravens tried to even the score. It started to seem like the score was going to hold at 1-0 until with 10 minutes left in the game the Timber wolves back line made a costly mistake as miscommunication between the defenders on a backwards pass gave Penelope the chance to steal the ball and go 1v1 against the goal keeper who had no chance at stopping her shot from point blank range.

 

Josie quickly got her team to huddle up before they resumed the game, noticing almost instantly everyones body language changed as if they had just lost the game. “Hey everyone look at me! Let that shit go and keep our heads in this game. So what, we all knew this wasn’t going to be easy but hey we are not done yet. Keep talking and don’t let up, we are winning this game, this is our home field and we protect our turf now LET’S GO!” They broke their huddle with new life and a clear determination to end this game with a W.

 

As the clock started to wind down to the final minute, it almost felt like the whole stadium went completely silent as the tension grew. Sammy managed to steal the ball from a Raven forward trying to make a run at their goal, she passed it over to Josie who went flying up the field, looking ahead to try and set one of her teammates up for the game winner. Everyone was on the edge of their seats as they saw a defender catching up to Josie and out of the corner of her eye, Josie could see Penelope making a beeline right for her as well. Ready for her this time, Josie made a quick pass to Sammy and jumped just as Penelope went sliding under her, causing her to actually tackle and take out her own teammate.

 

The crowd shot up out of their seats from Josie’s smart play and become more anxious as the Timber Wolves passed midfield nearing the goal. They began counting down as the Timber wolves made one last attempt at victory.

 

**10**

 

Sammy passed the ball back to Josie as a defender came charging at her.

 

**9**

 

Josie looked up to find AJ making a run towards the box.

 

**8**

 

Josie slipped the ball past two defenders as AJ caught up to the ball in the box.

 

**7**

 

The two defenders collapse onto AJ giving her no angle on the goal, she looks up to see Josie heading to the front of the box.

 

**6**

 

AJ makes a cut towards the end line pulling the defenders even father away from the goal, before she cut back towards Josie.

 

**5**

 

AJ passes the ball to the front of the box where only Josie could reach it!

 

**4**

 

Josie made her final approach on the oncoming ball, catching it with a soft touch setting up her shot.

 

**3**

 

Josie struck the ball from out side the box with everything she had behind it, hitting it perfectly causing the ball to curl.

 

**2**

 

The ball spun curling towards the top left corner of the goal just out of the reach of the keepers hands.

 

**1!**

 

As she saw the ball hit the back of the net, Josie practically sprinted toward the bleachers in celebration with her right arm pointing to the sky and the biggest smile on her face.

 

As she stops in front of the frenzied crowd, Josie’s eyes jump from person to person watching their expressions, from her parents to her sister, to MG and Kaleb, then her eyes fall back to Hope who’s standing there clapping for her with an almost proud smile on her face as their eyes meet once again. The moment doesn’t last long because as Josie hears the referee blow the final whistle within seconds she is mobbed by her entire team jumping on her in celebration. The Timber wolves had won!

 

——————————————------------------------------------------

Hope moved from her spot next to the bleachers to her original spot back at the oak tree. She watched as the two teams went to shake hands and head back to their benches. Hope watched as the student section swarmed the field in celebration, high fives and hugs going all around. That smirk making its way back to her face as she spots Josie moving through the crowd, every person she walks by congratulating her in some way as Josie just graciously smiles at them. Hope is simply mesmerized by Josie, she’s so focused on the soccer star she almost doesn’t notice the presence of someone coming up behind her.

 

“So this is where you’ve been.” The familiar voice calls out as they make their way to Hope’s side. She doesn’t have to look to know who it is, after all she’s heard that voice her entire life.

 

"Hi mom.” Hope answers back as she feel her mom’s arm wrap around her shoulders and her lips press into her hair for a sweet kiss.

 

“Hi sweat heart,” Hayley replies and Hope finally looks up at her with a smile. Hayley nudges her daughter with her hip as she continues to speak, “you know your dad was getting really worried about you when you weren’t home for dinner and you weren’t answering your phone.”

 

“My bad, sorry mom but it was actually a really intense game so I didn’t notice my phone going off,” Hope looks at her mom apologetically as she pulled out her phone from her back pocket to find several missed calls and text messages from both of her parents. “And yeah my phone was still on silent from class.”

 

“Uh huh well, next time just remember to take it off silent once you are done with school please.” Hayley tells her firmly yet in a teasing manner, she knows it’s not really a big deal but for her own sanity, she does not need to hear it from Klaus again about why their daughter has her own phoneif she won’t answer it.

 

“Yes moooom.”

 

“So who won?” Hayley ask as she dropped her arm from Hope’s shoulder

 

We did if you didn’t notice the giant mosh pit on the field. Josie got the game winning goal with basically no time left on the clock.

 

“Josie huh?” Hayley ask as she turned towards Hope, dropping her arm from Hope’s shoulder as she crossed her arms in front of her.

 

“Yeaaah, what’s that tone for?” Hope responded with her eyebrow raised at her mother as she turned to face her mirroring her stance.

 

"Oh no reason.” Hayley started with that teasing tone, “So are you two friends again?”

 

Hope’s mood completely shifts as she turns away from her mother and back towards the field, she answers with a hint of sadness in her voice, “You know it’s complicated mom.”

 

Hayley let’s out a sigh to her daughters response, taking a step closer to her as she starts to rub circles in her daughters back, “Hope it doesn’t have to be, it’s been 3 years don’t you think it’s time to move past what happened, you’ve both grown up so much.”

 

“I’m not taking any chances mom.” Hope responds still a bit closed off with her focus still on the field in front of them.

 

“I swear you are just like your father.” Hayley comments a little frustrated.

 

Hope actually let’s out a small chuckle at she looks up at her mother, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing.”

 

Hayley just shakes her head before she speaks, “You know I love your father, but the two of you can be so stubborn sometimes-“

 

“I’m pretty sure I don’t get that just from dad.” Hope cuts in with a smirk and a bit of snakiness in her voice that is all her father.

 

“Hey!” Hayley shoves Hope in the shoulder causing her daughter to laugh, she gives Hope a pointed look as she starts again, “But what I was trying to say was you two can be so stubborn and when it comes to you acting out of fear the both of you close yourselves off and often times don’t make the best decisions even if at the time it seemed like a good idea.” The conversation takes a more serious turn than Hope would have wanted but she respects her mother enough to give her, her full attention, not noticing the group of people watching them from the soccer field.

 

———————————————————————----------------------------

 

Meanwhile back on the field, Josie was pulled into a giant group hug as Lizzie, Kaleb and MG all congratulated her on her big win and game winning goal. The group was all smiles, laughing and joking around until Penelope made her way over to them.

 

“Jojo.” Penelope addresses her ex looking directly at Josie not paying any mind to the people around her.

 

“Don’t call me that,” Josie starts as she looks at her Ex already annoyed by her presence, “what do you want Penelope?”

 

“I want an apology.” Penelope states like it was a no brainer, but to Josie and the rest of the group it couldn’t be further from what they expected her to say.

 

Before Josie could respond, Lizzie chimed in clearly already heated by this conversation, “Apology for what, your feelings get hurt from loosing? If anything you should be apologizing to my sister you piece of-“ Lizzie was ready to square up with Penelope like she had at the party but Kaleb once again got in between them and pulled Lizzie away.

 

“Okay calm down there Lizzie,” Kaleb said softly, which resulted in Lizzie huffing out in frustration then taking another breathe to calm down.

 

Penelope simply ignored Lizzie and brought her attention back to Josie, “How about for cheating, tripping me like that, I guess you really didn’t think you could beat me fair and square huh.”

 

Josie rolled her eyes at Penelope as she crossed her arms in front of her, “Oh don’t even try and come over here talking about playing fair,” Josie countered clearly not wanting to deal with her Ex’s bs, “and for your information it wasn’t me, it wasn’t Lizzie and it wasn’t any of the other witches here.”

 

“Well it had to have been someone, Jojo.” Penelope argued as she took a step closer to Josie, her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

 

Then Josie just smirked at her, as she told her who she should go talk to, “You really want an apology Penelope, go ask Hope.”

 

This not only caught Penelope off guard but the rest of the group as well as they looked at Josie curiously. Penelope just brushed it off as Josie just messing with her, “Why would I ask Hope Mikaelson?”

 

“Because she’s the one that did it.” Josie answered with a shrug stating it so nonchalantly. Penelope just looked stunned standing in front of her and it seemed for the first time her Ex had absolutely nothing to say. So Josie made it clear she had nothing else to say, “Now are we done here?”

 

Penelope just glared at her and the rest of her group as she tried to stand up a little straighter, “I’ll see you around Jojo.”

 

“No. You won’t.” Josie responds back, practically stone faced. Josie was truly done with Penelope and honestly wanted nothing to do with her, and in this moment she made it very clear, Penelope had nothing over her anymore.

 

Penelope turns and walks away with a huff as she heads towards the exit. Josie remains standing firm as she watches her ex walk away, her gaze shifts towards her sister for a moment as she notices this evil smirk on her Lizzie’s face. “What’s that smile for?” Josie asks clearly knowing her sister was up to something.

 

“Juuust watch,” Lizzie tells her as she points back over to Penelope you was raising her gatorade bottle to her lips when suddenly all of the contents of the bottle spilled out onto her, leaving the girl completely soaked.

 

The group couldn’t hold in their laughter, especially Lizzie, but even through the laughs Josie nudged her sister, “What did I say about magic?”

 

“Hey you never said I couldn’t do anything after the game.” Lizzie defended as she shrugged her shoulders causing Josie to shake her head at her sister.

 

As their laughter died down, Josie’s curiosity started to creep in as she began to scan the crowd in search of her favorite ocean blue eyes.

 

“Jo, who are you looking for?” Lizzie asked as her sisters gaze was still searching around the crowd.

 

“Umm I was just wondering if Hope was still here.” Josie answered as she still continued her search.

 

“Isn’t that her over by that tree? Who is she talking to?” MG questioned as all of their attention shifted towards where Hope was standing with an older woman.

 

“Oh that’s Hayley, Hope’s mom the werewolf alpha we were telling you about earlier.” Kaleb explained as they all continued to watch Hope and Hayley’s conversation from a distance.

 

“I wonder why she’s, Hope’s parents don’t come over to the school that often unless it’s some sort of emergency or you know to keep up appearances. Huh I really want to know what they are talking about?” Lizzie comments, truly curious as to what would bring Hayley Marshall out to their campus.

 

“Yeah me too,” MG adds in as he gazed up at the two women, then suddenly all the sound around MG seemed like white noise and he was completely thrown off guard at the sudden sound of two female voices ringing through his ears.

 

———————————————————————----------------------

“So if you two aren’t friends why did you come watch her play?” Hayley asked trying to lighten the mood and out of pure curiosity.

 

“I mean I didn’t just come to watch Josie, you know Penelope Park transferred over there and there is a lot of history with her and the team you know I was just making sure no one did anything stupid that could jeopardize what we have going on here.” Hope answered trying to make it sound very matter of factly but her mother wasn’t buying it at all.

 

“Penelope Park…” Hayley started eyeing her daughter who wouldn’t look her in the eye, so she continued to put the pieces together on her own, “as in, Penelope Park, Josie’s ex-girlfriend.”

 

There is a slight pause before Hope answers with a simple, “Yup,” while still avoiding eye contact with her mother.

 

“As in the girl you set on fire last year at that party.”

 

"That was an accident.” Hope had quickly turned towards her mother trying to defend herself, how could she forget her mom had found out about that little incident not long after it happened.

 

“Sure it was.” Sarcasm clearly laced in Hayley’s voice.

———————————————————————-------------------------

 

“Woah.” MG let out as he shook is head, a bit surprised at what he just heard.

 

"MG you good?” Josie asked looking over at her new friend.

 

“Umm yeah, I’m good, umm but I think I just heard something I definitely wasn’t supposed to.” MG tries to explain, suddenly finding himself in an awkward position. He glanced back up where Hope and her mother were standing but then quickly looked away.

 

Lizzie quickly catches on to this, “Wait did you just vamp listen to Hope and her Mom’s conversation?” MG looks back up at her with pure guilt written all over his face, not needing to say a word to confirm her suspicions.

 

“Dude what the hell is wrong with you?” Kaleb asks as he punches him in the shoulder.

 

“I didn’t mean to it just sort of happened! I can’t always control it and when Lizzie made that comment about wondering what they were saying I thought the same thing and I just sort of tuned in.” MG tries to defend himself.

 

“Okay well what did you hear?” Lizzie questions him, clearly intrigue at what possibly could have been said.

 

“Lizzie no, he shouldn’t have been listening in the first place, if they find out we were listening in on them it’s not going to turn out well for any of us.” Josie tries to argue against any snooping.

 

“Maybe for you,” MG says under his breathe, almost as a reflex, he tenses realizing he said that out loud.

 

“Wait what?” Josie looks at him surprised.

 

“Alright MG spill it.” Lizzie demanded now needing answers.

 

“Well Lizzie, I think you owe Hope a thank you.” MG starts trying to ease his way into this conversation.

 

Clearly confused Lizzie asks, “What do you mean?”

 

MG just rubs the back of his neck, still internally debating if he should even be saying this out loud, but in the end MG just sighed and continued to explain, “If I heard correctly, Hope’s the one that set Penelope on fire.”

 

“Wait that was Hope?” Lizzie asks completely surprised by this information, “I didn’t even know she was at that party.” She turns to Kaleb silently questioning if he remembered seeing her there and he simply shook his head no.

 

“Why would she do that?” Josie questioned almost in shock, it was like her brain all of a sudden couldn’t think straight.

 

“They didn’t really go into those details, but if I had to guess, she probably did it for you Josie.” MG tried to help her understand.

 

“I just don’t get why.”

 

“Well maybe you should go ask her.” MG suggested.

 

“MG I’m not going to go up and ask her! What am I going to say, hey so MG was listening into your conversation with your mom about you setting my Ex on fire, why did you do that?” Josie responded sarcastically.

 

“How about you just go talk to her?” Kaleb suggests, throwing in his two cents.

 

“And say what?”Josie asks legitimately having no idea what to say, usually she’s pretty good when it comes to flirting and witty banter but having a real conversation with Hope terrified Josie. Josie can feel herself getting anxious over a conversation she wasn’t even sure she was going to have. She started to fidget with her hands and rock her weight back and forth until she felt her sisters hand on her shoulder and Josie took a deep breath as she looked over at Lizzie.

 

“How about you just start with thanks for coming to my game Jo.” Lizzie tells her with a soft smile before she pushes Josie in Hope’s direction.

 

—————————————————————————————————————————

“Hey, all I’m saying is you can’t let fear keep you from being happy and keeping people away because you are afraid of losing them isn’t protecting anyone, you’re just denying yourself at a chance of being happy. Just think about it okay.” Hayley tells Hope as she had pulled Hope into a quick hug.

 

“Yes mom.” Hope answers as she takes a step back after their hug.

 

“I love you.”

 

“I love you too.”

 

“You going to head home soon?” Hayley asks as she turns her attention looking back onto the field.

 

“Yeah I was just gonna check in with Jed and check on Sammy, not gonna lie mom I thought she was going to wolf out on one of those girls.” Hope answers looking up at her mom.

 

“And you’re going to say hi to Josie.” Hayley adds not looking over at Hope.

 

“What make’s you say that?” Hope looks at her a bit surprised, not sure if that was meant as a question or her mother was telling her she needed to do so.

 

“Because she’s walking over to the fence right now and she hasn’t stopped staring at you.” Hope quickly looks back onto the field and immediately finds Josie jogging towards them, automatically Hope begins to smile at the sight of Josie coming towards her. Hayley turns her attention to Hope and smirks at her daughters reaction, she knows there is something there she just wants Hope to finally open up and admit it. With Hope’s attention clearly all on Josie, Hayley just smiles as she turns away to leave throwing out a simple, “I’ll see you at home.”

 

“Yeah see you at home.” Hope breathes out as she starts to walk over to the chain linked fence surrounding the track, her eyes still focused on Josie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you all think? Will this chapter hold you all over for about 2 more weeks? 
> 
> I promise I'm planning on adding another chapter to Screw Your Loophole and the final part to I Don't Want To once I get back, if you haven't read those stories or my other Hosie stories yet please go and check them out!
> 
> As usual thank you again for reading and hopefully you will all stick around and continue to read my stuff when I get back for real!


	6. The Minute She Broke Your Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's true, I"M BACK!!!!
> 
> Thank you once again to all of you for being so patient for this new chapter and for helping me out with the whole story getting posted onto a different site without my permission mishap. 
> 
> Anyway thank you all so much for sticking around and for all of your comments and kudos, hopefully this chapter was worth the wait for you all. As Always thank you for checking out this story and all of my other stories and pre-apologies for any and all spelling and grammatical errors. Hope you all enjoy!

Josie can feel her heart start to beat faster as her legs begin to move just a little quicker at the sight of Hope walking towards her. Josie can’t help but smile as she approaches the fence, where Hope was now waiting for her.

 

“Hey!” Josie greets the older girl as she takes her final few steps just stopping a foot in front of the fence.

 

“Well hey there superstar!” Hope greets Josie as she leans against the fence, resting her forearms on the top bar, as she bent over at her waist. Josie can’t help but stare at Hope’s stance, her posture giving Josie a clear view of her breasts and if she stands just ever so slightly to the side Josie could easily see the amazing curves that were Hope’s ass. Hope knew exactly what she was doing to the midfielder so she gives her a smirk as she continues on by giving her a compliment, “Nice goal by the way.”

Josie can feel her cheeks starting to get warm from Hope’s words catching the girls attention and causing them to lock eyes. Josie knows she’s been caught staring by that little glint in Hope’s eyes, she looks down to the ground for a quick moment before she looks back up at Hope and responds. “Thank you,” she starts with her cheeks still red from embarrassment but a genuine smile spreads across her face knowing Hope stayed to watch the entire game, “and thank you by the way for coming.”

 

Hope merely shrugs her shoulders like it was nothing at all, “Well you asked me to come and I did say I would.”

 

“Yeah but you didn’t actually have to.” Josie responded as she took a step closer to the fence just slightly off to Hope’s left side. Josie placed her hands on the top of the bar, her left hand only about an inch away from Hope’s left forearm, her eyes never leaving Hope’s as she took her new spot against the fence. “I’m used to having people say they would come watch a game and them not actually showing up.”

 

This causes Hope to straighten up her posture, standing so now her hands rested on the top bar and her hips rested against the chain link fence. Like Josie, Hope didn’t break eye contact during her movements before she responded with, “Well I always keep my word Jo, plus I wanted to come and I’m glad I did.”

 

Josie’s smile grows a little wider from the sincereness of Hope’s words, but before she let’s her smile get too big Josie bites her lip and looks away from Hope. The two stand in comfortable silence for a moment, just enjoying the others company, as the cheers and chaotic noises of the crowd around them seem to fade away. When Josie looks back up at Hope, she finds the older girl already looking at her and both of them can’t help but smile. Then a question that’s been floating around in her head for more than half of the game pops back into Josie’s head. Hope can see the wheels turning in the younger girls head and merely raises her eyebrow at her silently asking her, _What?_

 

“Okay so I’ve got to ask,” Josie starts as she turns her whole body towards Hope, “was it you that tripped Penelope during the game?”

 

That wicked Mikaelson smile spread across her lips and Hope just gave Josie this look that said it all. Josie’s mouth dropped open as she looked at Hope stunned. After the initial shock wore off, Josie just shook her head as she turned back to her original position leaning against the fence as she began to laugh causing Hope to laugh as well.

 

“I can’t believe you did that, what happened to the whole no using powers rule.” Josie asks thru her laughter as she nudged Hope’s shoulder with her hand.

 

“Pretty sure no one around here is going to be calling me out for that one,” Hope begins to answer as she tries to settle down from her laughter. “Plus I can bend the rules a little for this situation.” Hope jokes when the sight of the last Ravenscroft player jogging off the field towards the exit catches her eye. Hope’s gaze shifts over to the players destination of the visitors team bus. Hope straightens up a little as she turns her whole body, her back now leaning up against the fence, as she was now facing the same direction as Josie was but Hope’s eyes were still focused on the bus. She starts to speak again but her tone changes as it becomes more serious, just ever so slightly. “I said it before and I’ll say it again Jo, I protect our own, she hurt you and she got what she deserved even though I could have definitely done a lot worse.”

 

Josie picks up on Hope’s now more serious tone but she doesn’t think too much of it. What she said though does bring up a new question to Josie’s mind. “But Hope, isn’t she technically one of us, she is apart of our supernatural world.”

 

Without hesitation Hope answers her, “She was no longer one of us the minute she left this school,” _the minute she broke your heart,_ Hope wanted to add but she held back. Josie notices these subtle changes in Hope’s demeanor, she’s gone into protective mode now, and even with her hands in her pockets Josie could tell Hope was clinching her fists. Her whole body seemed to tense up just staring at the visitors bus. Josie wasn’t sure why Hope was acting like this, yeah Penelope hit her with a dirty slide tackle but it wasn’t that bad, yet here Hope was ready for a fight.

 

Silence once again filled the space between them but this was different, it wasn’t uncomfortable but Josie could feel this sort of tension building and it started to make her nervous. It wasn’t because she was afraid of Hope it was more like she was afraid of Hope getting hurt. Josie suddenly reaches over, placing her hand on Hope’s forearm as she softly speaks trying to get her attention, “Hope?” When Hope doesn’t move, Josie gently tugged at Hope’s arm, trying to pull her back to reality, “Hey Hope, look at me.”

 

Josie’s voice and touch pulls Hope from her thoughts causing her to turn her attention to Josie totally unaware her eyes had shifted gold. That is until she noticed the slightest flinch from Josie, not expecting to see Hope’s golden eyes, and pretty much out of reflex surprised to see the bright glowing gold eyes instead of her ocean blue ones. Hope quickly covers her eyes with her hands, trying to basically rub the golden color away.

 

“Hope you okay?” Josie asks clearly concerned for the older girl. She just watched as Hope pulled her hands away from her face and quickly blinked a few times before answering her.

 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Hope starts, her gaze still directed ahead of her, as she continued to blink a couple more times just to be sure her eyes were back to normal. When Hope turns her attention once again back to Josie she notices how the younger girl seems to be a little bit more relaxed yet still concerned, indicating her eyes were indeed back to normal. “Sorry about that.”

 

“Hope don’t apologize, I just care if you’re okay.” Josie tells her moving her hand from Hope’s arm to the older girls shoulder causing Hope to turn and open up her stance to Josie.

 

“Don’t worry about me,” Hope tries to shrug it off but she can’t help the small smile she gets from the thought of Josie actually caring about her. She quickly glances down at the ground trying to hide the smile that was surely about to spread across her face. As Hope begins to look back up at the younger girl, the speckles of blood seeping through her sock catches her attention causing that smile to disappear, “if anything I should be asking you that question. Are you okay? No trips to the doctor or any need for a healing spell right?”

 

Josie could swear there was a hint of concern in Hope’s voice at the mention of her injury and for some reason Josie felt this sudden urge reassure her that she was fine, “Nah I’m okay, I mean in the moment I was ready to punch Penelope in the face it hurt so much but it’s not the worst I’ve been hit or injured.”

 

Josie tries to play it off casually. It was true though, after playing soccer almost her entire life that slide tackle definitely wasn’t the worst injury she’s ever gotten. Of course there was some extra baggage attached with this incident however compared to all the other times someone knocked her down. Now it was Hope’s turn to be amused by what Josie had to say as she shook her head at the girls response, “Wow Saltzman I didn’t realize you were such a violent person, first you wanted to punch Connor and then Penelope, remind me to never get on your bad side.” Hope teased.

 

“Well and those were two moments when I couldn’t use my magic.” Josie responds with a little extra confidence.

 

“*Gasp* are you telling me Josie Saltzman has a dark side?” Hope teases again, with her right hand quickly moving to cover her chest acting surprised but her tone made her seem skeptical.

 

Josie just shook her head at Hope’s nonsense as she answered, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

 

Then it happened, that damn evil Mikaelson smirk reappears on Hope’s lips as she drops her hand from her chest and places it on top of Josie’s, causing the younger girls gaze to fall towards their hands where Hope’s thumb started to make circles on her skin. Josie’s eyes quickly dart up back to Hope’s as she hears her say in possibly the sexy tone she’s ever heard, “Yes I would actually,”

 

Up to this point Josie was feeling good, confident and composed knowing she was able to to keep up with Hope’s flirty banter so far, but the minute Hope’s hand touched hers, everything went out the window. Josie’s cheeks were so red, her mouth had gone dry and she could feel herself getting absolutely flustered, you would have thought she just got done running their conditioning test.

 

Before either one of them can say anything else, someone catches Hope attention out of the corner of her eye, causing her to break eye contact with Josie. Confused and curious Josie turns back towards the field just as she hears Hope whistle a very loud and quick note, catching several people’s attention. It only takes a moment for Josie to realize it was all the werewolves who picked up on the call including her teammate Sammy who was now quickly jogging over towards them.

 

Josie glanced back at Hope quizzically trying to see if she could get an answer as to what was going on but the older girls sight was locked onto Sammy. Josie watched as her teammates demeanor quickly changed as she made eye contact with Hope as she made her final approach to the girls at the fence.

 

Not to be rude, Sammy quickly glances at Josie and gives her a quick greeting, “Hey Josie.”

 

“Hey Sam-”Josie tries to say back but Hope cuts her off.

 

“Sammy,” Hope says sternly, quickly getting the werewolf’s full attention.

 

Sammy quickly straightens up as she acknowledges Hope, “Yes Hope.”

 

Hope lets her gaze fall down to her hands staying silent for a moment to almost let the tension grow. Josie could swear she saw the beads of sweat starting to form on Sammy’s brow as she waited to hear what Hope had to say. Still with her gaze directed down at her hands, Hope began to speak, “How you doing Sammy? It was a bit of a physical game out there huh.”

 

“Ye-yeah it was but I’m good Hope, I promise.” Sammy stutters out, clearly a bit nervous at where Hope was taking this conversation. Josie just watched this whole seen unfold, Hope was now in Alpha mode and poor Sammy seemed to be shrinking into a scared puppy. It started to feel like Josie was watching someone get sent to the principles office, it’s that relief knowing you aren’t the one that is about to get in trouble but you felt so bad for the kid that was about to get it.

 

Hope finally raised her gaze back onto Sammy as she stood up straight and cracked her knuckles before she spoke again, “You sure? I got a little worried there for a minute, thought I was going to have to step in and get you pulled from the game before you wolfed out.”

 

Josie could see Sammy literally gulp at Hope’s words as she started to panic at what Hope was implying, “Hope I promise I’m good I have everything under control. It’s just, it’s Ravenscroft, you know they are our big rival and there is so much bad blood between us and they were really starting to get dirty and this team is like another pack for me and you know how we protect our pack and when they just kept taking dirty shots and then Penelope ugh, and Penelope’s just such a bitch-“ Sammy had been rambling, trying desperately to convince Hope that it was a one time thing until Hope’s sudden laughter caught her and Josie both off guard.

 

Sammy and Josie both just starred as Hope came down from her bit of laughter only to have their mouths slightly drop when she finally says, “Well you’re not wrong, she is a bitch.”

 

This causes small smiles to appear on both of the soccer players faces as a little bit of the tension starts to dissipate, “Look I know this was a bit of an outlier in how most of your games go but still you gotta keep it under control if you are gonna keep playing for the team Sammy.” Hope tells her sounding more like a stern parent than an Alpha at the moment. Sammy and Josie’s eyes both went wide at the thought of Sammy basically getting pulled from the team. Besides the fact that Sammy was one of their best midfielders, both girls knew how much being a part of this team meant to the young werewolf.

 

Sammy quickly took a step closer to Hope as she made her a promise, “I promise Hope, I’ll control it and if there ever is a game where I am struggling I’ll make sure I get subbed out.” Hope remains silent and just waits for Sammy to continue, she knows there is something else the girl has to say. Sammy takes a breath before she speaks again, “I’m not going to lie though Hope, it did help having you here, I know my eyes flashes but the minute I saw you that urge immediately went away. It was like I forgot where I was for a minute and I was just getting so angry and frustrated that it just started to seep out but seeing you just grounded me. I know I should be better at this and I don’t want to bother you, you shouldn’t have to do this and constantly checking up on me and us other wolves I should-“

 

“Sammy.” Hope speaks up snapping Sammy out of another rambling fit.

 

“Sorry.” She replies dipping her head down as Hope gives her a nod in response to go on. “What I’m trying to say is, if you aren’t too busy do you mind coming to the rest of our games this season or at least the very important ones where I know competition will be tougher. I don’t want to let this team down by benching myself just because I’m not strong enough to control my wolf side.” Sammy finishes with her head drooping down almost ashamed by her request, but Hope’s voice gets her to quickly raise her head once again.

 

“Why do you think I came tonight Sammy?” Hope starts as she patiently waited for the wolf to look her in the eyes. “Like you said, we protect the pack and as your Alpha, if you need me here then I will be.” Hope tells her then silently indicates for Sammy to come closer to her. Sammy takes the final few steps it takes to reach the fence before she lets Hope wrap her hand around her head pulling her closer so Hope can whisper in her ear.

 

During this whole exchange, Josie had just stood there silently watching as things played out. A swirl of different emotions hitting her as this all seems to be a roller coaster of feelings. She was first scared for Sammy, although Hope doesn’t often scare her the knowledge of what happens to those who have almost exposed them was one of the most terrifying things in the world. She loves Sammy like family and she couldn’t bare the thought of what would happen to her if she went full on werewolf in a game. Then there were all her emotions swirling around Hope, she watched this girl literally switch from an Alpha ready to kill its own, to a disappointed parental figure, to some sort of concerned/comforting mentor role. Then there was what Hope said that had her emotions riding that roller coaster. Josie wasn’t going to lie, it was a little disappointing hearing Hope say she came to watch them play because of Sammy, Josie really thought she had convinced Hope to come for her but apparently she wasn’t the reason for the Tribrids appearance at their game. Then Josie was on a total high at the thought at Hope coming to the rest of their games, it just meant that Josie was going to see Hope a lot more often in the space that Josie was most comfortable in.

 

Josie continued to stay silent and just watched as Hope whispered she had no idea what to Sammy, and it was in this moment Josie desperately wished to have some sort of supernatural hearing. Just as Josie started to get restless and debated on walking away to leave the two alone, she noticed Sammy nod her head and start to pull away from Hope.

 

“We will talk more about your game schedule and all of that later, okay? For now pick your head up and keep it held high, you had a great game tonight kid, don’t let this little hiccup over shadow that okay.” Hope said out loud, just loud enough for Josie to hear, and Josie can’t help but smile at this interaction. For some reason it’s very rare for anyone to notice this side of Hope as a leader. It seems they all had just become used to the “big bad Tribrid” that, unless you were one of the werewolves ,you just didn’t notice moments like these.

 

“Thank you Hope.” Sammy tell Hope gratefully and Hope simply waves her hand at her as a silent, _no problem,_ and, _go on get out of here._ This causes Sammy to give one last smiling glance atHope then at Josie before she jogs off and heads back towards her friends and family.

 

As Sammy gets lost amongst the crowd, Josie turns her attention back to Hope who is still staring off into the crowd as if protectively making sure Sammy got back to her family safely. Once again Josie can’t help but smile at the older girl as she steps closer to her.

 

“That was really nice of you to come for Sammy, I mean it was definitely a good reason for you to come to the game.” Josie comments as she leans against the fence right next to Hope, trying to get the older girls attention.

 

“Yeah,” Hope starts as she still looks on in the distance but then continues on as she turns to Josie, “well I mean I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the only reason why I came.” Hope adds in with that smirk.

 

Josie knows what Hope had said before in their earlier conversation but now Josie was a little confused of the context of everything. Did Hope come FOR Josie or was it merely because Josie asked her to come and so she just thought why not, if any of that made sense, now Josie was just starting to confuse herself. Then just as Josie was about to ask Hope to elaborate on what she meant by that, the sudden sound of her name being called stops her.

 

“JOSIE! JOSIE!”

 

Both Hope and Josie turned their attention to the field to see Josie’s parents waving at her. Josie’s cheeks had been turning red a lot today but this was for a whole new level of embarrassment as she watched her father wave both of his arms in the air above his head at her as if she wan’t already looking at him. The small laugh that escapes Hope’s lips doesn’t help, as all Josie wants to do now is crawl in a hole and die.

 

“I think your parents want you back.” Hope comments as the two continue to watch Alaric and Caroline wave at the pair. Another chuckle escapes Hope’s lips as both girls notice Lizzie standing behind the twins parents, Josie was glaring at her sister as Lizzie mouthed an _I’m sorry_ towards her and shrugged her shoulders like the blonde didn’t know what to do. Josie softened her gaze instantly forgiving her sister since it could have been much worse, they could have walked right up on the pair as they were talking and embarrassed her even more in front of Hope.

 

Josie reluctantly waved back to her parents causing them to finally stop their waving antics. Josie let out a sigh of relief before she started to speak,“Uh yeah I guess I’ve got to go. Umm…” Josie paused as she turned towards Hope to look her in the eyes for possibly the last time tonight. “Thanks again for coming tonight Hope and I guess I’ll be seeing you at some more of our games soon.”

 

For possibly only the second time in awhile Hope gives Josie a pure genuine wide smile before she answers her with a, “Yes, yes you will.”

 

All Josie can do is smile back at Hope as almost by reflex bites her lip as she slowly backs away from Hope in the direction of her family. “Bye Hope.” Josie lets out still facing the older girl not quite ready to turn and walk away from her.

 

“Bye Josie.” Hope responds back as she pushes herself off of the fence as she starts to slowly back away towards the parking lot basically mirroring Josie’s actions. When she feels the surface below her feet changes from track to grass Josie finally decides to turn around as she watches Hope do the same. As Josie jogs back towards her family she can’t fight the urge she has to turn and look back at Hope one last time but when Josie looks over her shoulder she doesn’t find Hope walking towards the parking lot, instead she sees the tribrid once again standing next to the old oak tree watching her jog off to her family. When their eyes meet, Hope simply smiles at her then turns around and continues on to the parking lot.

 

Josie’s smile was probably the biggest it has ever been as she turns back towards the direction of her family. Thoughts about her day flood her brain as she thinks about the crazy events that have happened. It honestly had to have been one the most eventful and emotionally packed days she has had in a long time and quite possibly on of the best days she has ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright what did you all think? I know this story is moving kind of slowly but I promise thinks will be picking up soon! Thank you again for reading and I'll hopefully see you all again soon! 
> 
> Oh and is anyone else excited for Comic Con content?!?!?!


	7. Okay To Let Them In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry these seemed to have taken longer than expected but here you go! As an apology I give you a nice long chapter update!
> 
> As always, thank you for clicking on this story, apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors, and I hope you all enjoy!

As Hayley approached the front door she mentally prepared herself for the headache she knew she was about to endure. She barely had stepped through the doorway when she heard Klaus’ booming voice.

 

“So where was she? Where is she? Why isn’t she with you?” Klaus questioned her as he walked to meet her in the main entry way of the Mikaelson Mansion, his voice stern, laced with frustration and hints of concern.

 

“Oh calm down Klaus,” Hayley started as she walked past him heading towards the kitchen, taking her coat off in the process and tossing it onto the couch as she passes it. “Hope was at the soccer game and that is where she is still at, at the moment. Oh and she’s not with me because I told her she could stay.”

 

“Alright well that doesn’t explain why she wasn’t answering her phone. Why does she even have one of those bloody things if she isn’t going to answer it?” Klaus adds as he follows Hayley into the kitchen, his tone has changed a to be a bit calmer now knowing Hope was alright but still annoyed at his daughters actions or lack there of.

Hayley lets out a sigh as she reaches the refrigerator, turning her full attention towards Klaus, as she answers before opening the door, “She forgot to put her ringer back on after school and it was to quote our daughter _‘a really intense game so I didn’t notice my phone going off’.”_ Hayley gave Klaus her own annoyed look for him badgering her for answers before she turned her attention back to the fridge as she began to pull out some of their family dinner leftovers for Hope.

 

Klaus lets out a huff as he makes his way to the kitchen island and leans up against.He watched as he was now standing behind Hayley with only the counter top separating them, as she continued to pull out some food for their daughter. Klaus waited for Hayley to shut the fridge before he added, “Well she should know better.”

 

Hayley just shakes her head as she looks up at Klaus, “She’s not a little girl any more Klaus, she can take care of herself.”

 

Klaus let out another huff as he rolled his eyes, ready to come back at Hayley’s comment but when he met her gaze to find her already glaring at him, he raised his hands up in surrender deciding to drop the subject. This simple gesture caused both of them to smirk as Klaus took a seat at the island and Hayley continued to prepare a plate for Hope. “So why was she at the soccer game anyway? It’s not like she actually has any interest in that sport.” Klaus asks now curios as to the why Hope had been absent from their dinner.

 

“One of our younger wolves is on the team and they were playing against Ravenscroft, you know how that rivalry can get, so Hope said she wanted to stay in case things got out of hand.” Hayley answers, pausing to see Klaus’ reaction. He simply nods, accepting the answer and clearly agreeing it was a smart idea. Then Hayley smiles as she continues on, “Buuuut I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the only reason why she went to that game.” Klaus looks up at her curiously but Hayley simply gives him this look and he immediately knows what she is thinking. 

 

Klaus audibly gasps before he asks with a shocked tone, “Are you telling me our little girl is smitten for someone?”

 

Hayley just laughs at the way Klaus phrased his question as she thinks about how Hope was acting earlier and the subtle changes she noticed whenever the topic of Josie came up, “Well from all the heart eyes I saw earlier, I believe so.”

 

Klaus smiles at the thought of there being someone out there who makes their daughter happy but that protective fatherly side starts to take over when he asks, “Alright so who is it I’m going to have to interrogate and intimidate if they are going to be dating our Hope?”

 

“Josie Saltzman.” Hayley answers simply, glancing up only briefly from the food she was reheating for Hope to catch Klaus’ reaction.

 

It took him a moment to realize who Hayley was talking about but when it finally hit him a smirk immediately appeared, “Caroline’s daughter?”

 

“Yup,” Hayley answered as she began to put away the extra food.

 

“She’s the tall brunette right, really smart?” Klaus continues to question making sure he’s envisioning the correct Saltzman twin.

 

“Yes that’s her, she’s the one Freya has talked about a lot. She may be a siphoner but she is the brightest out of all of the witches in town.” Hayley adds.

 

“And captain of the soccer team.” He adds with a clap of his hands as he connected the dots. “Our daughter has good taste,” Klaus comments with a smirk which quickly earned him a punch in the shoulder from Hayley. “Oh!”

 

“Uh huh you would think that. She’s definitely your daughter with your taste in women,” Hayley banters back as she walks over to the fridge and this pulls out a small laugh from the both of them.

 

Then as Hayley turns back to Klaus she notices this change in Klaus’ facial expression to one of confusion as the wheels begin to turn in his head. “Wait, I thought they weren’t even friends anymore after-“

 

“That’s what I thought too,” Hayley cuts in knowing what he was thinking, “but I don’t know, I guess something has changed. I honestly don’t know if it even matters though, Hope seems very adamant about keeping her distance. She’s still afraid that if people get too close to her that they are going to get hurt or worse.” She finishes as she continues to put the extra food back into the fridge.

 

There is a small pause before Klaus begins to comment, “Well Hope is a very smart girl it’s not a bad idea-“

 

“Seriously Klaus?!” Hayley practically slams the fridge shut as she questions him.

 

“What did I do now?” Klaus asks defensively as he looks at Hayley surprised by the sudden out burst.

 

“We shouldn’t be encouraging this. Hope should be out with friends and hanging out with kids her own age having fun.” Hayley starts as she walks back over to her side of the island looking Klaus in the eye as she continues on, “We promised each other we were going to give her a better life than what we both had, a better childhood, is she really doing that when she is too afraid to let others in and isolating herself from everyone?”

 

“She’s not isolating herself she’s fine, she has us, she has her family.” Klaus tries to counter back, he understands what Hayley is trying to say but he also understands Hope’s hesitations.

 

Hayley wasn’t backing down though and she decides to ask the hard questions after she takes a deep breath. “But what happens when that isn’t enough? What happens if we aren’t here anymore Klaus?”

 

Silence fills the room as both hybrids just stare at one another, after another moment of silence passes, Hayley finally speaks again.

 

“Look we both know, you and I are willing to die for our daughter, well what happens if that day comes. Who is she going to have?” Hayley can’t help the fear and frustration that boils up inside her as a stray tear escapes from her eyes. She hates being vulnerable, she hates showing it even more so she quickly turns away from Klaus and places her hands on the counter top for support as takes a deep breath. Hayley hates it when these thoughts invade her mind. Yes they were technically immortal but they all knew they weren’t invincible, there is always that possibility even if it was very slim. Hayley knew this families history and her own, there are moments where she can’t help but think they are cursed with constant pain and if that was true well then she knew the worst could always happen.

 

Hayley physically relaxes as she feels Klaus’ arms snake around her waist as he hugs her from behind, his head buried in the crock of her neck. They stay there for a moment, Klaus stays silent until he feels Hayley pull her hands away from the counter and places them on his own. He lifts his head from her neck and places a reassuring kiss on her temple before he whispers, “I will never let that happen.”

 

Hayley just sighs, “I know you mean that but you and I both know you can’t promise that. Hell Klaus, we couldn’t even protect Hope from triggering her werewolf curse.” Hayley counters back as she pulls away from Klaus’ grip taking a step forward and turning around so she could look at him face to face.

 

“Well then, she will have her aunts and uncles, Always and Forever.” Klaus’ voice has a new tone to it, it’s a little defensive and annoyed or maybe that’s frustration. It’s starting to feel more like an argument rather than a discussion.

 

Hayley starts to shake her head as she begins to speak once again, “She needs to have other people in her life Klaus, as much as we want to protect her forever and be there always, there is no guarantee. And I know this family will always be here for her as much as they possibly can but we can’t ask them to stay by her side all the time forever. She needs to have others to fall on who aren’t her family. If we want her to have better than what we had.”

 

“She will have the pack.” Klaus tries to counter, still hesitant to agree with what Hayley has to say.

 

“True but that still isn’t the same.” Hayley answers shaking her head, “She would be their alpha and that’s a totally different dynamic. She has to keep order and can’t be playing favorites.”

 

Klaus begins to pace now and Hayley just watches as she sees the wheels turning in his head, “Klaus look I know you are hesitant, you’ve seen the dark side of trusting people, and I know that’s why you are so hesitant right now.” Hayley’s words causes Klaus to stop his pacing and look up at her. “But you have also lived through the good that happens when you let people in, when you let Marcel in, when you let me in…when you let Camille in.”

 

Hayley watches as Klaus’ eyes soften at the mention of Camille’s name and she knows she’s struck a chord in him, as he slowly walks closer to her, “You and I both know the impact Camille had on this family and on you. Without her we wouldn’t be here Klaus, so imagine what Hope could possibly miss out on if she doesn’t give herself that chance.”

 

“Well what am I supposed to do Hayley? Why don’t you just talk to her?” Klaus asks as he closes the distance, legitimately puzzled on how they were supposed to proceed.

 

“Tell her it’s okay to let people in, for some reason she listens to you.” Hayley tells him as she places her hands on her shoulders as they both laugh at her comment. Then Hayley takes a breath before continuing, “I know there are moments where I’m like her best friend and we can talk about stuff but that’s the thing somethings it’s hard to see that line between mother and friend. Klaus I know she’s your little princess, well that makes you her king and her knight in shinning armor. She looks up to you and if you tell her that its okay, then she might actually believe it. Just talk to her please, she deserves the chance to live a full life and right now she isn’t.”

 

Klaus lifts his hands to Hayleys face cradling her head between his hands causing her to look him in the eyes. He pulled her closer as he placed a kiss on her forehead then let his forehead rest against hers, both of them shutting their eyes when Klaus spoke softly like a whisper, “I promise I will talk to her love.”

 

“Thank you.” Hayley thanked him as she gripped onto his forearms reassuringly. They both stood there in the kitchen in comfortable silence for a few extra moments until they finally broke apart. When Hayley finally meets Klaus’ gaze again he gave her that wicked smirk.

 

“Now come here,” Klaus says as he pulls Hayley into him and begins to kiss her neck.

 

“Ah Klaus Hope will be home any second,” Hayley says as she tries to pull out of his grip and almost as if on cue they both freeze at the sound of the click of the front door being unlocked, causing both of them to turn their heads in the direction of the main hallway.

 

“IM HOME!” Hope calls out as she enters.

 

“We know!” Hayley and Klaus shout back in unison, not moving from their current position.

 

“You know having parents with supernatural hearing just ruins- UGH what are you guys doing!?” Hope quickly shields her eyes in disgust.

 

“Well it’s good to see you too young lady,” Klaus starts causing Hope to look back at them, “and what? Can’t I just stand here with your mom in my arms or I guess we could…” Klaus leans in and kisses Hayley on the lips when they suddenly both pull apart at the sound of Hope making fake gaging noises.

 

“Ah no please god, I’m going to loose my appetite.” Hope tries to sound as disgusted as possible just to get her parents to stop.

 

“Uh uh nope none of that!” Hayley starts pulling away from Klaus to fully give Hope her attention, “I just got done reheating your dinner for you young lady. Now hurry up, put your stuff away then come sit down and eat.”

 

“Yes mom.” Hope responds before she turns to head up to her room. Klaus just smirks again as he watches the scene unfold in front of him. As Hope leaves the room Klaus takes a step forward and kisses Hayley on the cheek.

 

Hayley smiles as she turns around to once again find Klaus smiling at her, “What was that for?”

 

“Thank you. I probably don’t say this to you enough but thank you for giving me the daughter I never realized I wanted or needed. For literally dying for her and for giving this family a chance. I’ve honestly given you more than enough reasons to leave and never let me near Hope again but you stayed. Thank you for giving me a chance to be a father.” This was one of those few moments that Hayley gets to witness Klaus be vulnerable and let his wall fall down. She places her right hand on his cheek and lets her thumb rub against it, before she leans in to give him a quick kiss.

 

“You are a good dad Klaus, thank you for not letting us down.” Hayley tells Klaus with a smile, as she thinks back about that day so many years ago before Hope was born. She believed in him back then and he didn’t let them down. Klaus smiles hearing Hayley’s words, thinking back on that day as well, there had been many moment throughout the years where he didn’t feel worthy of either one of these women in his life but to hear those words come from Hayley meant everything. Without another word Klaus pulled Hayley in for a tight hug, letting everything he wanted to say be expressed in this simple moment.

 

———————————————————————————————-

 

“Okay tell me everything, NOW!” Lizzie spoke excitedly as she pulled Josie into their room and quickly shut the door behind her. She had been impatiently waiting the whole car ride home to ask her twin for all the details.

 

Josie let out a tired sigh as she dropped her stuff next to her desk. “Lizzie can I at least take a shower first I feel disgusting.”

 

“No you can not!” Lizzie almost shouts as she moves to take a seat on her bed not taking her eyes off of her sister. “You were flirting with THE Hope Mikaelson and she was flirting back!”

 

“How would you know?” Josie asked as she stopped at the foot of her sisters bed, still a little in disbelief about her whole interaction with Hope, to be honest it felt like a dream like it didn’t actually happen.

 

“Well it sure looked like flirting even from the middle of the soccer field.” Josie couldn’t stop the blush that covered her entire face now thinking about how many people could have seen her and Hope’s interactions. Then a smile appeared as she thought about her sisters words, now realizing maybe Hope really was flirting with her in that way. Josie tried to bite her lip to stop her smile from growing wider at the thought of Hope actually liking her back. Lizzie just sat on her bed starring at her sister, but quickly getting impatient she poked at her sisters side pulling her from her thoughts, “So you gonna tell me what happened or what?”

 

Josie sighed again as she grabbed her sisters desk chair and took a seat facing her sister then she began to recall pretty much everything Josie and Hope discussed. She told Lizzie how Hope said she wanted to come to the game and that she was happy that she did, she told her how it was Hope who had tripped Penelope during the game, which caused Lizzie to laugh and make a mental note to thank Hope for that. Then she explained why Hope did it and recalled how Hope’s demeanor had changed going into protective mode to the point where her eyes shifted gold. Josie didn’t mention how beautiful Hope’s eyes looked like this close up, even though nothing would ever compare to Hope’s ocean blue eyes, seeing them like this was a close second.

 

Then Josie explained how Hope practically made her melt into a puddle when she touched her hand and how Hope going into alpha mode saved her from some embarrassing herself. She told Lizzie how Hope explained to Sammy she was at the game to make sure she was okay, which brought up Josie’s doubts once again. Then Josie finally finished filling her sister in with how Hope was planning on coming to basically the rest of their games that season. Silence filled the room as Josie just watched Lizzie for a moment then suddenly it was like the light bulb went off for Lizzie.

 

“Wow so Hope REALLY likes you!?” Lizzie nearly squeals out as she shifts around on her bed so she was now siting with her legs hanging off the foot of the bed. Josie just watches her sisters excitement and see the wheels turning in Lizzie’s head as she fully processes what she told her, “Oh and now I can totally believe she’s the one that set Penelope on fire. Great another thing for me to thank her for.”

 

“Maybe..” Josie starts, for some reason even with everything she just recalled, she’s still not convinced their whole interaction was more than just Hope being a flirt. She holds so much power over people she doesn’t even have to try, maybe this was just something fun for her to do, but then again Josie saw how her demeanor changed with Sammy. That side of Hope the kind and caring side, that was all real. Josie just didn’t know what to think, there were too many thoughts running through her mind to figure out what it all meant, “I just don’t know and if she does I still have no idea why.”

 

“BECAUSE SHE LIKES YOU JO!” Lizzie literally shouted and she shot up from the bed out of shock and annoyance that her “smart” sister just wasn’t getting it.

 

“Shhhh!” Josie shot up out of her own seat and threw her hand over Lizzie’s mouth who immediately slapped it away. “Lizzie will you be quiet, are you trying to tell the whole neighborhood too?!”

 

“I’m sorry but seriously how are you doubting that Hope has feelings for you too? I’ve never seen her act like this with anyone else. I’m pretty sure you are the only one who has ever gotten this close to her.” Lizzie explains never expecting she was going to have to convince her sister of something that seemed so obvious to anyone who was paying attention. Lizzie put her hand on Josie’s shoulder and looked her in the eye, “Josie she was actually smiling, Hope Mikaelson doesn’t smile just for anyone.”

 

“It’s just.....why me Liz, she’s THE Hope Mikaelson and I’m just-“ Josie tries to argue but Lizzie is quick to cut her off.

 

“THE Josie Saltzman. Co-captain of the reigning state champion soccer team, the top student in our class and one of the most clever witches in this entire town town. Not to mention you are one of the kindest, most caring, and the most selfless person I’ve ever met. Plus you are smoking hot and the best twin a girl could ever ask for.” Her final point actually gets a chuckle out of Josie which causes them both to smile before Lizzie continued on.

 

“You see there are plenty of reasons why Hope would have feelings for you too, so stop doubting it and just see where this all goes.” Lizzie pauses as she looks her sister in the eye, understanding there is a little more behind why Josie is so hesitant and doubtful.“And look I know you’ve missed Hope, ever since that day you honestly haven’t been the same Jo. So if for some unexplainable reason Hope doesn’t like you back like that, isn’t it nice to at least just have her back in your life at all. Just promise me you won’t runaway from this, whatever it is that’s going on between you two. You will actually keep the door open and keep pushing to make it open wide.”

 

“I promise, thank you Liz.” Josie tells her with a small nod and smile before she pulls her sister in for a hug.

 

“You’re welcome."

 

“I love you.”

 

“I love you too,” Lizzie answers back with one more tight squeeze, as they break apart Lizzie puts her hand on Josie’s shoulder, looks her right in the eye and adds “…but you do smell and should really take a shower.” With on a smirk on her face she quickly walks away towards the door.

 

Josie’s mouth drops open with a stunned look on her face, but it doesn’t take long for her to respond to her sisters words, “Rude!”

 

—————————————————

 

After Hope came back down to eat her dinner, Klaus left his daughter to eat in peace heading to his study/art room. He went back to working on his latest painting getting completely lost in his work as he waited for Hope to be done, knowing Hayley would make her come talk to him before she went off to work on her homework. It didn’t take too long before Klaus heard a knock on the door just as Hope entered. Klaus didn’t bother to turn around or move from his spot as he heard Hope’s footsteps get closer until they finally stopped with her now standing right next to him.

 

“Mom said you wanted to talk to me?” Hope said as more of a question than a statement, a little hesitant in trying to figure out how much trouble she was in.

 

Klaus let Hope stand there for another moment before speaking, “So where were you tonight?” He asked not looking away from his painting.

 

“I thought mom already told you?” She questioned a bit confused.

 

“I want to hear it from you,” Klaus responds now putting his paint brush down and turning his full attention on Hope.

 

“I was at the soccer game,” Hope started.

 

“To keep an eye on Sammy,” Klaus continued for her.

 

“Yes.” Hope answered simply.

 

“And to see Josie,” Klaus added looking Hope right in the eye.

 

“I-“ Hope opened her mouth to argue but knew from the look in her father’s eyes there was no point in denying it, “yeah."

 

Klaus smirked as he watched Hope avoid his gaze, “You really like her don’t you.”

 

“Oh dad!”

 

“Oh don’t deny it sweetheart it’s written all over your face,” Klaus tells her as he points his finger at her face and moved it in circles in her direction.

 

“Well it doesn’t even matter, nothings going to happen,” Hope says as her shoulders sink and she rubs the back of her neck.

 

“And why not?” Klaus asks as he takes a step towards her, “It can’t be because she doesn’t like you, no one can deny the Mikaelson charm.” He says with that signature smirk.

 

“Because I don’t want her getting dying because of me!” Hope suddenly shouts catching both her and her father off guard, she looks up at him apologetically before she speaks, “Dad I know this families history and I know what comes with our last name, we have enemies everywhere. I can’t let Josie in Dad, she’s gonna get hurt if she is connected with me, with us.”

 

“Hope do you like Josie?” Klaus asks simply.

 

Hope hesitates for a second, looking at Klaus a bit confused by his question but she answered, “Yeah Dad, I like her a lot.”

 

“Does she make you happy?” Again Klaus responds with another question.

 

This question just makes Hope smile, the thought of Josie made her happy, seeing Josie made her happy, being with Josie made Hope the happiest she’s possibly ever been. Klaus watched as the smile grew wider on his daughters face and that was a good enough answer for him, so before she could speak up Klaus cut in. “If she makes you happy Hope, then why deny yourself that?”

 

Hope takes in her fathers words but then a tear rolls down her cheek as she thinks of her worst fears and nightmares, “What about auntie Camille, Dad?” Hope questions looking him right in the eyes as tears started to flow from hers, “Wouldn’t you rather here still be alive, I know all the stories you and mom told me growing up. You said she cared about me and was good to our family but if staying away from our family would mean she was still alive wouldn’t you want that.”

 

Klaus pulled Hope into a tight hug as he made soothing circle with his head against her back, “Oh Sweetheart. Well you know besides your mother, Camille was one of the best things to ever happen to me, that’s why your mother insisted on making sure you knew about her and her impact she had on me and this family. If I had pushed her away, kept her from being connected to our family well then none of us would be here today. She helped your mother and helped protect you as best she could. She helped me become someone who was worthy of loving you, and someone deserving of your love back. Knowing all the moments we shared together, I’m grateful for every single one of them and honestly I wouldn’t trade them for her to be alive because that would mean we never had those moments.”

 

After letting his words sink in for a moment, Klaus pulled away so he could look Hope in the eyes, “Trust me my littlest wolf, I tried to push Camille away but she wouldn’t go anywhere. Now if Josie is anything like Camille, I have a feeling she’s just going to keep coming back every time you push, so why fight it. Why not let her win this one and let her win, trust me there are some battles its okay to lose.” Klaus tells her with a wink and this makes Hope chuckle.

 

“So yes as much as it pains me to say it your mother is right,” Klaus begins as he and Hope both straighten themselves up when they suddenly hear Hayleys voice from the living room.

 

“I heard that!”

 

“You were meant to!!” Klaus called back with a chuckle and looked to the door to see Hayley joining them, “Hope it’s okay to let Josie in and it’s okay to let other is just to be your friend. I know it’s hard to get past that fear but all the good that comes from letting people in is worth it.” Hayley smiles hearing those final words from Klaus. She takes a step closer and bumps him with her side just before she turns her attention towards their daughter.

 

“Hope if there are people you want to open up to, people you care about that you want to let in just tell us and we will protect them like family.” Hayley tells her trying to reassure her, then of course Klaus quickly chimes in.

“Of course you know after I officially approve them for being good enough to be around you.”

 

Hope smiles at her parents grateful for their offer but she’s still hesitant, “But I don’t want you two just hovering around all the time and I don’t need you doing creepy stalker things and checking up on people at night.”

 

“Well then,” Klaus starts catching both women in the rooms attention, “I think it’s time you push your Tribrid power limits.”

 

Both women looked at Hope skeptically each raising an eyebrow to him, which only caused him to laugh, “I think it’s time you started training more Hope. What happened three years ago, you were only a child and had barely tapped into your abilities. Now is the time to hone in on your skills and get you stronger that way you can help protect the ones you love.”

 

“It has been awhile since we’ve trained as a family,” Hayley chimed in, “plus you can work with Marcel at his boxing gym to work on your hand to hand combat, you can spend some time with Freya at the book store and study up on some new spells.”

 

“Plus Rebekah is always down for a good fight, then add in your Uncle Kol and Aunt Davina whenever they come to visit as well as Elijah,” Klaus adds in, “We can all keep ourselves sharp and get you prepared for anything that comes are way. And that way you can have the confidence to actually let people in. How does that sound?”

 

Hope smiles wide before she rushes into her parents arms pulling them both into a tight and grateful hug. As she pulls away she looks up at them with actual excitement in her eyes, “Yeah I like this plan.”

 

“Well then how about we get started?” Klaus questions as he claps his hands together.

 

  
“Now?” Both Hayley and Hope question.

 

“I mean why not, why wait and I mean we could train through out the rest of this week too plus with how we are going to be training she’s not going to be able to stay awake in class anyway,” Klaus answers with a smirk, “You haven’t missed any classes and all are your grades are top mark yes?” Klaus asks and Hope just nods her head yes.

 

Hayley lets out a laugh as she looks between Klaus and Hope, “Alright well then, how about a family run, it’s been awhile since we’ve run as a pack.”

 

“Let’s go!” Hope says with new found enthusiasm and excitement as she starts to lead her parents out of the house and towards the woods.

 

————————————————————————————————————

 

The next day at school Josie sat at the soccer table talking with her teammates like she did everyday before classes started but today her teammates only had half of her attention as she anxiously waited for Hope to arrive. Every few minutes Josie would turn her attention to the parking lot to find Hope’s spot to still be empty. Hope would usually be here by now, it’s not like she ever got sick and she’s maybe been absent from school maybe twice, and eventually all of the supernaturals found out it was because she and her family had gone to fight these Vampire Nazi Purists. So of course every worse case scenario started to pop into Josie’s head about why Hope wasn’t there and just as the warning bell rang one last thought popped up in Josie’s head, maybe she’s avoiding me...

 

“Hey Josie,” Josie’s pulled from her thoughts hearing her name and the sudden hand on her shoulder, she quickly looks up behind her to find AJ standing there. “You coming or what?”

 

Josie takes one last glance at Hope’s stop before she turns back to her co-captain and friend, “yeah let’s go.”

 

Josie’s morning was pretty uneventful, every class was pretty much the same, the only difference was she got a lot more _Congrats! Great game! Amazing goal!_ and other compliments as well as high fives from other students throughout the halls. Josie did notice though some awkward looks from some students she couldn’t exactly figure out why. Some seemed like glares while others seemed to give her a once over in confusion but Josie just brushed it all off and continued with her day. At lunch she once again met up with Kaleb, MG and her sister, eating at the same table as the day before. They were all enjoying themselves as MG animatedly described to Josie what it was like for him in the stands being at his first Mystic Falls Vs Ravenscroft rivalry game. Josie couldn’t help but laugh as he recalled having to physically pull Lizzie back and stop her from jumping on the field to go after Penelope.

 

“What you’re my twin we’ve already established I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you!” Lizzie commented defending her actions.

 

“I know and I would do the same.” Josie answered back sincerely which caused both of them to smile.

 

As they all settled down and continued to eat their lunch, to put it nicely their least favorite person in the entire school had to walk up to their table.

 

“Hi Lizzie, Kaleb, new kid,” Diana greeted them, with an over acted smile on her face.

 

“My names M-“ MG tried to introduce himself but Diana clearly didn’t actually care to know his name, as she turned her attention to the person she clearly came over to see.

 

“Josie hi!” Diana greeted a little too excitedly and both of the twins literally cringed at the sound of her voice.

 

“Hi Diana,” Josie responds back simply, knowing Diana was only over here for some sort of reason.

 

“What do you want Diana?” Lizzie asks clearly already annoyed by the girls presence.

 

“What? Can’t I come over here to congratulate your sister on a great game last night and an amazing game winning goal.” Diana counters back and Lizzie just gives her this silent look that Josie couldn’t help but smirk at, the best way she could describe it was it was Lizzie’s Bitch please look.

 

Before Lizzie could say anything though Josie speaks up, “Thank you Diana and thank you for coming to the game.”

 

“Of course! Always have to support the team against Ravescroft.” Diana pauses for a moment and everyone at the table, minus MG, knew what was coming next the actual reason why Diana came over to talk. “So what’s going on with you and Mikaelson?”

 

“That’s none of your business Diana now go away!” Lizzie speaks up getting very annoyed and now very protective over her sister.

 

“Oh come on besides the game last night, that’s all anyone can talk about around here. Everyone saw or heard how she beat up Connor for you and then she actually came to watch the soccer game and talked to you afterwards, come on. Are you two a thing now or what?”

 

“Diana seriously walk away now or I’m making you run laps the entire practice tonight!” Lizzie was getting pissed, she could tell how uncomfortable Josie was getting and she just wasn’t having any of it today, today was supposed to be a good day for her coming off of a big win and Lizzie wasn’t going to let Diana ruin it.

 

“You can’t make me-“ Diana tried to argue but Lizzie cuts her off.

 

“Oh yes I can, coach already told me, I’m running the first half of practice today because she has to proctor some make up tests for her health class. So I most certainly can make you run for as long as I want.”

 

Diana just clenches her jaw in response and starts to turn and leave but quickly comes back to their table, “How about this, what did you do to make Hope not want to come to school today?”

 

This causes Lizzie to shoot up out of her seat, catching the attention of a few other supernaturals in the quad as Lizzie yells at Diana, “Leave, NOW!”

 

The two blonds have a bit of a stare down before Diana smirks and begins to walk away but not before she turns back to Josie and tells her, “it might be for the best Josie, you’re not good enough for Hope Mikaelson.”

 

Immediately after those words leave her mouth, Diana is knocked down onto the ground after Lizzie’s fist collides with her face. Before anything can escalate, Jed is there to hold Lizzie back along with a few other wolves, as some vampires and witches approach.

 

Still holding on to Lizzie, Jed starts directing the other supernaturals, “Kaleb I’m gonna need you and the other vampires to compel everyone to forget about this, and someone needs to compel Diana to i don’t know think someone opened their locker right into her face so that’s why she’s about to have a fun black eye soon.”

 

“On it,” Kaleb answers without hesitation as he and the other vampires get to work.

 

“Josie boundary spell now, don’t need anyone walking away seeing any of this.” Jed tells her calmly as Sammy steps up next to her. Josie just nods as she takes Sammy’s hand and does the spell.

 

“Lizzie I’m going to need you to calm down okay, your fists are glowing right now which is why we are doing all of this okay.” Jed pauses as he feels Lizzie start to relax. “You good?” He questions as he starts to let her go.

 

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks,” Lizzie answers a bit embarrassed but also grateful for the help. She quickly looks at her sister who pulls her in for a tight hug.

 

“Thank you for defending me but next time just use your words okay?” Josie tells Lizzie as they pull apart.

 

“Hope’s not gonna be happy to hear about this.” Sammy speaks up as she walked towards Jed, the comment was directed to him but the twins clearly heard her.

 

“Okay where the hell is Hope? This would have all been avoided if she was actually here.” Lizzie questions a bit annoyed, she knew it was still her fault for blowing up like that but she was really curious where the tribe is was.

 

“She’s prepping for the full moon tomorrow.” Jed answers simply.

 

“Okay what’s so special about tomorrow’s full moon?” Lizzie questions still not buying what Jed had to say.

 

“We have a lot of first time wolves turning tomorrow so Hope is helping her mom make sure everything is prepped and good to go.” He’s goes on to explain not flinching or showing any possible signs that he would be lying. Before Lizzie could try and counter back with Jed’s answer Kaleb and the other vamps appear next to them.

 

“Hey we’re all good.” Kaleb informs them and Jed simply nods his head at Josie who breaks the boundary spell.

 

Jed makes a quick whistle noise and all the wolves begin to head back to their table. Jed starts to head back as well but turns back and calls over to the small group, “Try not to pick anymore fights until Hope gets back will ya.”

 

Once they were out of earshot Sammy caught up to Jed, “Did you really need to lie to them like that?”

 

Jed just continued to walk back to their table and without looking at her answered, “I wasn’t lying, Hope really is out with her mom prepping for the full moon.”

 

“Okay well we both know that can’t be the only reason why she isn’t here.” Sammy begins to argue but Jed stops her from continuing when he suddenly stops walking and looks down at her.

 

“Just drop it Sammy, Hope’s fine and she will be back in school next week-“

 

“Wait so you do know why she isn’t here?”

 

Jed sighed because of course he spoke to Hope, it’s like people forgot when Hope isn’t around he’s the next in line for alpha at the school, so of course she called him late last night and told him she wouldn’t be at school until next week. Hope trusted him to make sure everyone stayed safe and that no one did anything to expose them. “Yes I do and like I said drop it, you’ll see her tomorrow for the full moon and before you even ask her, she already said she will be at your game on Friday so relax.” Jed tells her as he pats her shoulder, “Now c’mon.”

 

The rest of the week goes on pretty uneventfully, besides the wolves on the night of the full moon no one had seen Hope, no one really thought much about it except for Josie. For the rest of the week Josie couldn’t get Hope off of her mind. She was constantly wondering why she wasn’t at school, where was she, and did she have anything to do with why Hope wasn’t around. She couldn’t help it when her thoughts went to the worst case scenarios and it didn’t help that it seemed like no one at school had any answers either, well except for maybe Jed but Josie got too nervous to ask him.

 

When Friday finally came and Josie and her team were warming up, Josie’s thoughts were everywhere, she tried to get focus on the game but every time she looked at Sammy her thoughts immediately went to Hope. After the last game Josie was now nervous how she would do if Hope wasn’t here, so when they were switching between warm up drills Josie pulls Sammy to the side.

 

“Hey you going to be okay today? I mean I know its only Mission Hills and they are the worst team in our conference right now but are you going to be okay without Hope here?” Josie asked her with a bit of a concerned look on her face but Sammy just looked at her confused.

 

“What are you talking about? Hope’s here.” Sammy told Josie with a smile as she watched her teammate expression change almost comically in surprise.

 

“Wait what?” Josie asked as she quickly looked up to the stands.

 

“Yeah, I was talking to her before we took the field,” Sammy explained. Josie notices how Sammy’s gaze shifted over Josie’s shoulder as her eyes flashed gold. Josie quickly turned around following Sammy’s gaze towards the woods behind the bleachers but she saw nothing. “Sorry Jo, but she has to be discreet, can’t have any of the adults see her at the game when she hasn’t been to classes all week.”

 

Sammy smirks as she watches Josie’s body language completely change, she was standing a little taller, that sense of confidence that she always had on the field was back and there was now an actual smile on her face. “Don’t ever doubt Hope,” Sammy starts causing Josie to look at her, “Hope always keeps her word Josie, remember that.”

 

Sammy gives Josie one last smile before she heads off to the next set of pre-game drills. Josie can’t help but smile as well as she watches Sammy jog off, she takes one last look towards the woods and for a second she swears she saw a streak of auburn hair move through the trees. Josie just shakes her head and jogs off to rejoin the rest of her team unaware of golden eyes watching her from the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So was the wait worth it? What did you guys think?
> 
> Oh and side note, I'm now on twitter! Find me with the same name @acchica2527, follow me for updates on which stories I'm working on, you can message me with ideas and I'm going to post polls to get y'alls opinion or thoughts on different things concerning my stories. 
> 
> So leave a comment down here and/or follow me on twitter so we can talk all things Hosie! Thanks again for reading and I hope you all enjoyed!


	8. Who The Fuck Did This?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***WARNING PLEASE READ THIS NOTE BEFORE READING CHAPTER***
> 
> Hi everyone, so major apologies for taking so long to update when I said I was going to post like a week ago, some unexpected things came up and I've been very distracted lately.
> 
> SO I wanted to give you all a potential trigger warning before you read this chapter, it isn't anything too graphic or detailed (I hope) but there is one scene in this chapter that deals with sexual assault. I have been debating including this moment in the story for awhile because I know how serious of an issue it is and unfortunately how it has become a common occurrence for many people. In the end I've decided to include this scene into the story and hopefully I've been able to write this in a way that isn't triggering for anyone who has had to deal with this. (If you would like to skip part of the story, I put in BOLD the first few words of where to skip and then again where it would be safe to start reading once again)
> 
> Again I apologize for the long wait and hopefully this long chapter will make up for then. As always thank you for reading my stories, apologies for any and all spelling and grammatical errors and I hope you all enjoy!

It was a beautiful Saturday in Mystic Falls, as Josie, Lizzie and MG explored around their small town. After the soccer teams victory last night the girls had promised MG that they would show him around town and get him a little more familiar with how everything works. They had started the day by walking around town and the girls pointing out which stores or buildings were the go to places for supernaturals, what were places to avoid and just overall good hang out spots. The twins gave MG more background and history of the supernaturals in town, as well as the Mikaelsons. Josie was quick to point out the book store at the corner of the main square that was owned and run by Freya Mikaelson, explaining how it was one of the go to places for all of the witches. It’s where Freya would have them all gather if the witches needed to meet, plus she had some of the best books on supernatural history. MG was truly amazed by how much history there was within this little town and how much of it revolved around the Original family. Eventually they made their way to the Mystic Grill where they ended up spotting a lot of their fellow classmates and friends.

 

Not too long after the trio was done with lunch they continued on exploring the town. They were now walking through the park with their to go milkshakes when something caught MG’s attention causing him to stop in his tracks as he recognizes a familiar car, “Hey isn’t that’s Hope’s car?”

 

His question immediately catches the twins attention and they both shift their gaze in the same direction to indeed find Hope’s car parked outside Marcel’s boxing gym. “Yeah that is definitely Hope’s car, so she is alive then I see.” Lizzie comments taking another sip of her milkshake as their little group continued to stare from across the park.

 

“What do you think she’s up to right now?” MG questioned not realizing who’s gym her car was parked in front of.

 

“She’s probably working out with Marcel, he owns the gym and is Rebekah Mikaelson’s fiancé. Oh and he’s also Hope’s adopted older brother,” Lizzie answers and has to stop herself from laughing at MG’s comical expression. She simply holds her hand up indicating to MG she would continue as she spoke, “Yeah I know it’s a weird and complicated family tree they have. Basically long story short Klaus saved Marcel from being a slave when he was a child and Klaus raised him like a son. Marcel and Rebekah ended up falling in love, Marcel was turned into a vampire and then their relationship basically turned into this whole “will they/won’t they” situation for decades but now they are finally together.”

 

“Sooo he’s a vampire and basically a Mikaelson?” MG looks at the twins making sure he actually understood.

 

“Basically,” Lizzie answered shrugging her shoulders before she turns to Josie who she realized hasn’t said anything since they noticed Hope’s car.

 

Josie honestly hadn’t heard a single word MG or Lizzie had said, her heart was pounding too loud in her chest to hear anything. It had felt like forever since Josie had seen Hope and now Josie was anxious to see her again.

 

Without even realizing it, Josie started to walk towards the gym, which caught MG and Lizzie off guard causing them to quickly follow behind, “Josie what are you doing?”

 

Still not processing a thing her sister was saying Josie continued to make her way to the other side of the park getting closer and closer to the gym. Suddenly Josie stops, now close enough to see into the glass windows, but still far enough away for no one to really notice, as Josie catches a glimpse of familiar auburn hair.

 

When Lizzie and MG catch up to Josie’s side Lizzie asks her another question this time actually catching her attention. “Jo you good?”

 

“Yeah I’m-“ Josie finally spoke not taking her eyes off of the front door of the gym, but

as if almost of cue the door opened to reveal Hope and Marcel walking through causing Josie’s heart to practically stop. Hope was wearing these leggings thatshowed off every possible curve the Tribrid had and the sweat drenched tank top clung to Hope’s skin, not leaving much to the imagination of what were Hope’s abs.

 

The trio watched as Marcel gave Hope a quick hug before waving her off to leave. They stood there in the park in silence as Hope threw her gym bag into the trunk of her car and began rummaging through it clearly looking for something. When Josie notices Hope pull out a sweatshirt from the trunk, Josie wasn’t going to lie she felt a little disappointed that Hope was about to cover herself up. Well that was until she watched Hope set the sweatshirt back down in her trunk and strip off her tank top. Josie’s mouth almost dropped to the ground like her milkshake literally just did at the sight of Hope standing in front of them. Josie thought she was dreaming because there was no way she was looking at Hope Mikaelson, shirtless in nothing but a sports bra and tights revealing she actually has a six pack as sweat dripped down her body.

 

Lizzie had jumped at Josie’s milkshake hitting the ground, she turned to her sister and was legit ready to bust out laughing at her sisters expression. Lizzie reached up her hand and bumped the bottom of her sisters chin as she told her, “Josie, close your mouth you are actually drooling this time.”

 

Josie had to swallow hard, trying to replenish her throat that suddenly went dry at the sight of Hope. Her eyes never leaving the Tribrid as she threw on her sweatshirt, she watched as Hope lifted it above her head causing her to stretch out once again revealing how fit Hope was. Josie suddenly forgot how to breathe but when she did, she let out a hushed, “Holy shit.”

 

“Yo Jo, I know that’s your girl and all but can I just say, DAMN Hope is ripped and fine.” MG comments and quickly regrets it as Lizzie hits him upside the head, “OW!”

 

His comment and sudden outburst finally causes Josie to look away for a moment as she acknowledges his statement a little defeated, “She’s not my girl MG.”

 

“You sure about that?” Lizzie asks her sister giving her a knowing look with her eye brow raised.

 

Josie just shakes her head at her sister, she remembers the conversation they had the other night but just the fact that after everything that happened on Monday to not see Hope at all until now, yeah Josie wasn’t that optimistic, “Yeah Liz, I’m pretty sure.”

 

Suddenly the loud smack sound of Hope’s trunk closing catches all of their attention, as they watch her walk towards the driver side door but she doesn’t get in, instead she keeps walking down the sidewalk.

 

“Yo where is she going?” MG voiced the question all three of them were wondering as they just watched Hope heading farther and farther down the main street away from them.

 

"I don’t know,” Lizzie said in her very curious tone and immediately Josie knows exactly what her sister is thinking. Lizzie very excitedly and in a very determined tone spoke as she began to walk,“Let’s find out!”

 

Before Lizzie could get too far ahead of them though, Josie catches her arm to stop her, “No Lizzie, we shouldn’t.”

 

“Oh come on, you know you have been dying to talk to her since Monday. Well, maybe you can now.” Lizzie tells her trying to convince her of her not so well thought out plan. Even though she knows it’s not a great idea Josie has been dying to see Hope, so it doesn’t take her long before she caves and with a simple wave of her hand tells her sister, _Let’s go_.

 

The trio followed Hope from a safe distance, as she walked from the main street of town over to some less crowded side streets. They tried to remain as stealthy as possible knowing one false move and Hope would easily catch them. Although they were sure Hope hadn’t noticed them anyone else around would see them and think they were crazy, trying to hide in random plays and walk as quietly as possible making them look like complete idiots. Eventually Hope turns a corner neither one of the twins expects now recognizing where they were as they watch her jog across the street towards the towns daycare and youth center. Mystic Falls wasn’t big enough to have its own YMCA but this was the closest thing they had.

 

The three watched from around the corner still hiding behind the building as they watched Hope jump the fence into the playground area. The trio looked on with surprise at the sudden cheers and excitement coming from the little children playing as they all rushed towards Hope. They could hear the laughter and chants of Hope’s name as they all swarmed her, they even saw a genuine smile and laugh escape Hope’s lips as the children tackled her to the ground.

 

“Wow. Who knew the big bad Tribrid had a soft spot for kids.” MG comments as a woman appeared pulling kids off of Hope and shooing them away from the Hope so she could stand back up. Hope gives the woman a tight hug and a smile before she turns around and starts running around chasing the kids.

 

When the woman finally turns in their direction Josie was ready to slap herself in a _duh hello you should have known_ sort of way as she remembers who it was that now runs the youth center. “Lizzie, it’s Keelin who runs this place, Freya Mikaelson’s wife. No wonder Hope comes over here, apparently often.”

 

“That’s right!” Lizzie answers back having her own lightbulb moment, “And isn’t this where they have all of the younger wolves hang out, so they can train with Keelin?”

 

“Makes sense.” Josie adds in as she gazes back towards the group of excited kids.

 

“Wait so Keelin is Freya Mikaelson’s wife, if she a vampire or a witch too?” MG questions trying to fill in all the gaps on the Mikaelson tree.

 

“Nope, werewolf and before you ask its another complicated relationship, just know they are super adorable together and are totally couple goals if you ask me.” Lizzie explains to MG, who she can tell has finally put the pieces together. She smiles at him as she steps away from the wall slowly moving towards the direction that they came. “Well now that we solved that mystery we should be getting home, we need to get ready for the party tonight, you’re coming right MG?”

 

MG smiles at Lizzie’s question as she looks at him with hopeful eyes that he will say yes, “Yeah I’m totally down for a party, what-“

 

As MG and Lizzie discuss party details, again Josie was lost in thought not hearing a word her twin or MG was saying. She just watched Hope in awe as she played with the group of children looking so relaxed and care free. Josie missed seeing this side of Hope, she hasn’t seen Hope like this since they were kids themselves. Josie couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face at the sight in front of her and the memories from their past. She laughs when she sees this little girl jump onto Hope’s back asking for a piggy back ride and Hope graciously obeys the young girls request as she begins to run around the playground. Suddenly Josie’s heart comes to an abrupt halt when she locks eyes with Hope who comes to a complete stop, Josie hadn’t realized she had drifted away from the safety of her hiding spot behind the buildings wall and had now been standing in plain sight for anyone to see her.

 

The little girl on Hope’s back looked up at her quizzically, pulling herself up a little higher on Hope’s back to look at her face before she turned her head following Hope’s gaze. When the little girl spotted Josie, she smiled wide and waved to her, Josie couldn’t help but let out a little laugh as she waved back. Hope smiled as well and waved back at Josie as the little girl slid off her back. The two just stared at each other smiling for what seems like an eternity before the little girl tugs on Hope’s hand causing her to break eye contact. When Hope looks back at Josie, Hope winks at her and throws on her signature smirk before she follows the little girl off towards the monkey bars. Josie can’t help herself as she bites her lip as she falls back against the wall in pure bliss, not a word was even spoken between them and Hope was making Josie go crazy.

 

“*Cough* *cough* Eh hmm,” Lizzie coughs out to catch her sisters attention with a smirk and a teasing look on her face. MG tries to hold back a laugh when Josie finally looks up at Lizzie when she asks her, “You all good there Jo?”

 

With crimson red cheeks Josie straightens up taking a small step forward, “Uh yeah I’m good.”

 

“Well then lets head home.” 

 

————————————————————————————-

 

“Hey Hopey?” Hope couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face hearing the small voice call out her nickname, Hope looked down at the tiny five year old who was clinging to her hand looking up her curiously.

 

“What’s up Ally?” Hope asked as she crouched down so she was eye level with the young girl.

 

“Who was that girl that was looking at you earlier, the one that we waved at?” Ally asked with pure curiosity, Ally was one of those kids that wasn’t afraid to ask questions, constantly wanting to know more.

 

Hope’s smile spread a little wider thinking about Josie, she honestly missed seeing the girl and it was a bit of a surprise to see her staring at her from across the way, “That was my friend Josie, we go to school together.”

 

“Oh okay, well then why did she leave? Why didn’t she come play?”Ally questioned again this time with a hint of sadness in her voice.

 

“Al, she probably had somewhere to be,” Hope begins to explain and Ally looked down at her shoes as she kicked at the grass, Ally loved making new friends and it seemed she was bit upset she didn’t get to meet Josie. “How about this Al, next time I see Josie, I’ll ask her is she would like to come with me the next time I come visit? That sound good to you?”

 

Ally immediately lift her gaze from her feet to Hope’s face, a huge smile was plastered on her lips as she nodded excitedly, before she jumped into Hope’s arms for a hug, “Yay! I can’t wait to meet Josie! She’s really pretty and looks fun.”

 

A laugh escapes Hope’s lips at Ally’s excitement and words, again her thoughts are consumed by the brunette siphoner, _yeah she really is._ When Ally releases her grip from Hope’s neck, Hope catches Jed walking over to the playground out of the corner of her eye, “Hey Ally could you do me a favor, can you go find your brother and play with him a little bit, Pedro is probably causing all sorts of chaos. Can you be my little helper and make sure he doesn’t do anything that’s going to get him in trouble.”

 

Ally immediately stands up at attention and throws a tiny salute at Hope, “I’m on it!” She proclaims before she runs off to find her older brother and his friends. Hope smirked as she watched the little girl run off to play, that smirk quickly faded though as she stood up and turned towards Jed who was now standing at the fence waiting for her. She examined him for a moment trying to determine the nature of his visit. Jed was the only one outside of her family that knew she would come here on her Saturday mornings, just in case anything happened and the pack needed her. Jed didn’t come in a frantic nature so she knew it wasn’t dire but he had this slight tension in his body, as if he was about to ask a parent about something like letting him stay out past curfew. So Hope let that natural smirk make its way back on to her lips as she walked towards the werewolf.

 

Before she reached him at the fence Hope began to question Jed, “What’s going on?”

 

Jed stood up a little taller before he spoke, “I wanted to check in with you about tonight,” Jed begins and Hope simply gives him a curious look as she tilts her head and raises her eyebrow at him. “the soccer girls are hosting a party at AJ’s house and a lot of the pack wants to go, but I don’t think anyone should go unless you are there with us.”

 

Again Hope says nothing and just looks at him quizzically, encouraging him to go on and further explain, “You know I’ve done my best to keep everyone under control and keep things in order, and we’ve had no slip ups after I told you what happened with Lizzie. But without you at school, there have been some rumblings going on with the humans. Connor and some of those other idiots started becoming a little too relaxed, once they realized you weren’t around. You and I both know alcohol and supernaturals aren’t a good combo in the first place, but add in Connor and other idiots who want to mess around and pick fights, well it’s not going to end well.” Jed pauses for a moment in case Hope had anything to say, but when she doesn’t he finished up by telling her, “I want the pack to have fun and enjoy themselves but I can’t keep them under control like you can, shoot if I drink too I don’t know if I’d be able to control myself. So I wanted to ask you are you coming to the party tonight, or should I tell the pack the party is off limits.”

 

Hope waited a moment before she answered, making sure she took in all the information Jed just shared with her, Hope looks up at Jed with a smirk as she tells him “Well we can’t let the human’s forget who runs things around here. I’ve only been gone for what four days? Might as well make this my grand return.” Jed himself smirks at Hope’s words, and the meaning behind them, “Tell the pack, the parties on and to dress their best, we are making an entrance tonight.”

 

_———————————————————————————————————_

_LATER THAT NIGHT_

 

Josie and Lizzie were putting the final touches on their party outfits, Lizzie smiled as she checked herself out in their full length mirror. She was sporting a tight black crop top tank and paired it with this long black skirt that had a slit on the side. Plus her black heels and jewelry, Lizzie knew she was looking hot and was ready to party.

 

Josie had decides to go with these cute, high waisted black shorts with a white tank top and her favorite black ankle high heeled boots. Then she topped it all off with her black and white captain’s jacket, it’s basically a lighter and girl cut version of her letterman jacket and it was her absolute favorite. Lizzie had walked over and stood behind Josie as she made her finishing touches to her make up. Lizzie was excited for the party but she could tell Josie was a little anxious, so when Josie finally finished her make up Lizzie asked the question that had been on Josie’s mind since their morning adventures.

 

“So, do you think Hope will be at the party?” Lizzie asked as she made eye contact with Josie through the vanity mirror on their desk.

 

Josie sighs as she turns in her chair to look at her sister face to face, “I don’t know Liz.”

 

“Well are you going to go talk to her if she is there?” Lizzie asks as she takes a seat on Josie’s bed now facing her sister who was playing with her hands.

 

“Maybe… I-“ Josie starts but Lizzie was quick to cut her off.

 

“Don’t say “I don’t know” Josette Saltzman, don’t make me have to give you another pep talk when it comes to Hope Mikaelson.” Lizzie’s words catch Josie off guard, causing her to look up at her blonde twin. “Look you got this, you look absolutely amazing and you are going to be turning heads when you walk thru the door. Hope would be blind to not be drooling at the sight of you, I mean hello legs for days sis.”

 

Josie can’t help but laugh at her sisters compliment, causing Lizzie to giggle a little as well. “Now come on, we’ve got some heads to turn and a party to enjoy,” Lizzie says with a wink as she takes Josie’s hand and pulls her towards their door.

 

When they arrived at AJ’s house the party was in full swing, causing the twins to maneuver their way through the crowded house and out to the backyard where there was the most space. Josie quickly spotted her teammates hangout by the pool and Lizzie spotted Kaleb, Mg and some other vampires hanging out next to the makeshift bar not that far from the soccer team.

 

After about 30 minutes into the group all laughing, having fun, and enjoying the sounds of music blaring from the house everyone outside noticed the sudden silence coming from the house.

 

This caught Josie and all of her friends attention as they looked towards the dinning area of the house. AJ’s family had these sliding glass doors that actually folded up on themselves, basically opening up the whole back half of the house to the outdoors.

 

“What’s going on?” Lizzie questions as she steps up next to her sister as they watched small movements happening within the house, as if people were moving out of the way of something. Everyone just continued to stare at the house wondering what was going on.

 

“I’m not sure.” Josie answered back just as the crowd seemed to open up, parting like the red sea, revealing Hope and the werewolf pack.

 

For the second time that day, Josie’s mouth almost dropped to the floor at the sight of Hope. She looked absolutely incredible and everyone at the party could clearly see that as literally everyone seemed to be staring at her. Josie could literally feel her heart rate starting to pick up as she scanned over Hope’s appearance. She was wearing these tight high wasted black pants the worked nicely with her curves and this beautiful laced, what was that a corset, that in all honestly made Hope boobs look amazing. Her beach hair waves fell nicely over her black blazer looking jacket and finally she finished her look with some simple black heels. Josie couldn’t take her eyes off of Hope and she really didn’t know if she could stop staring at her even if she wanted to, and she definitely did not want to. Hope looked gorgeous and once again was making Josie flustered, which prompted the younger girl to question which Hope was hotter, just got done with a workout Hope or party glam Hope.

 

Well that debate in her head quickly ended when she realizes Hope and the pack had stopped at the bottom of the stairs of AJ’s back porch as Hope seemed to scan the backyard for something or someone. When Hope’s gaze finally falls on Josie, the brunette twin seems to hold her breath, as she watches Hope’s eyes seem to scan her body like she had done to the older girl only moments ago. Suddenly Josie feels extremely vulnerable and exposed to Hope’s wondering eyes, until she notices the smirk that spreads across Hope’s lips before she bites her bottom lip and looks Josie in the eyes from across the backyard. Josie can’t help but blush and look down for a moment before quickly looking back at Hope with a shy smile. Hope smiles back, before she turns her attention back to the pack, she gives them a small nod and the group suddenly breaks as different members head off on their own in different directions except for Hope, who remains in her spot.

 

As the group disperses the party slowly starts to pick up again as the wolves start to blend into the crowded space. Sammy practically jogs over to her teammates with a huge smile on her face, clearly happy to see everyone, “Hey guys!”

 

“Hey Sammy!” The team greets her back as she reaches the group.

 

“Wow Sammy that was one heck of an entrance,” AJ comments as she hands her teammate a drink.

 

Sammy just chuckles before she takes a sip of her new drink, “Well I mean if you are going to be fashionably late then you gotta make a grand entrance right.” She answers causing a few laughs from the rest of the girls, but Sammy quickly notices Josie’s attention is else where. Sammy doesn’t even need to look to know her captain was looking at her alpha. She watches as Josie’s gaze seems to move, indicating Hope was on the move as well. Sammy looks to the side and sees Hope making her way to the empty fire pit which causes her to smile as she looks up at Josie.

 

“Hey Josie,” Sammy calls out as she makes her way closer to Josie, catching her captains attention and causing the slightly older girl to look at her, “You gonna keep staring at Hope or are you gonna go talk to her?” Sammy asked her in a bit of a hushed tone so only the brunette could hear.

 

Josie’s cheeks immediately go red from Sammy’s words as she quickly looked around their friends to see if anyone else had heard. When Josie looks back at Sammy, she is met with nothing but a sweet smile before she nods in the direction of the fire pit where Hope was currently sitting. “Go on would you, before someone else tries to make a move on your girl.”

 

“She’s not my-“ Josie begins before Sammy actually physically nudges her in the direction of the fire pit.

 

“Just gooooo,” Sammy practically laughs as she pushes her captain, who briefly looks back at her before she redirects her focus towards Hope.

 

Josie took a deep breath as she made her final approach towards Hope, who hadn’t looked up at her once. Hope just sat relaxed leaning back into one of the lawn chairs surrounding the fire pit, she was staring into the fire almost lost in her own thoughts. When she was only a few feet away Josie spoke up to catch Hope’s attention. “Hey Hope.”

 

Hope smiled hearing that sweet voice she’s become so fond of, the one she’s missed while she’s been away training with her family. She looked up at Josie and Hope had to admit, Josie looked even more gorgeous up close and it was making Hope a little jealous everyone else at this party got the chance to see Josie look this good. Hope gave Josie possibly the sweetest smile she’s ever given someone before she answered back, “Hi Josie.”

 

“You mind if I sit there?” Josie ask’s a bit shy as she points to the seat right next to Hope’s.

 

“It’s all yours.” Hope answers with a smile and a wink and Josie instantly blushes as she takes the seat beside her. The two sat in silence for a few moments as they both just gazed at the fire, each stealing glances of the other every so often, until finally they both catch each others eye and they can’t help but laugh.

 

“So you’re actually alive, huh?” Josie speaks up, trying to get the conversation going.

 

“What did you think I died or something?” Hope asks a bit amused at Josie’s choice of words.

 

“No, I mean, you suddenly disappeared and no one knew where you were so I don’t know, I started getting worried about you.” Josie rambles a little as she looks down as her hands a bit shy, of course this is the first time she’s talked to Hope in days and she’s already making a fool of herself.

 

“Aw Josie you care about me?” Hope teases her, she can tell Josie was a little nervous and tried to get her to lighten up a little. So when Josie quickly looked up at her with red cheeks, Hope just gave her a sweet smile and wink, silently telling her it’s okay.

 

Josie lets out a small laugh as she shoves Hope’s shoulder, “Oh shut up.”

 

Hope just laughs as she shifts around in her seat getting a better look at Josie as she leans on the left armrest of her chair, “Well as you can clearly see I’m perfectly fine. Although, I’m pretty sure you noticed that this morning as well.”

 

Josie’s cheeks were again a deep shade of red from embarrassment as she thinks back to this morning and their attempts to spy on Hope, _wait does she know we followed her from the gym?_ Before Josie could say anything or let her mind go into panic mode Hope speaks up again.

 

“So this is what you had to head off and get ready for, instead of actually coming over to say hi,” Hope says in a way that was more of a statement than any form of a question and Josie just nods. “Well Ally, the little girl that waved at you while hanging on my back, she was a little upset you didn’t come over to say hi. So I told her I would ask you if you would want to come with me the next time I visit.”

 

Josie just looked at Hope a bit stunned before a smile spread across her lips, but she remained silent as she still tried to process what Hope just asked her. Hope was really asking her to be involved in apart of her life she was pretty sure no one else knew about. Now Josie was sure this all had to be some sort of dream that was until she felt the soft touch of Hope’s hands on hers. “So would you want to come?”

 

“Yeah I would love to actually.” Josie answers as she takes Hope’s hand in hers and gives it a gentle squeeze.

 

Hope’s smile gets a little wider as she looks down at the girls now interlocked hands, “Good, because I was not about to deal with a sad Ally, that child can melt your heart with one puppy dog eyed look.” Hope explains and the too break out in a fit of laughter. After they settled down the two of them continued to just talk about anything and everything, the world around them completely forgotten. They talked for what felt like hours but in reality had only been about an hour when Hope decides to finally get a drink.

 

“You want anything Jo?” Hope questioned as she stood up from her seat.

 

“No I’m good,” Josie tells her as she stands up herself, “I’m actually gonna run to the bathroom, meet you back here?”

 

Hope smiled as she gave her a small nod before starting to walk in the direction of the makeshift bar, “Sounds good to me.”

 

Josie just smiled once again as she started to make her way back to the house. The nice thing about the party being at AJ’s house was, Josie knew where everything was and she could easily maneuver her way through the crowd towards the right direction. As Josie turned down the empty hall passing the fancy dinning area of the house and AJ’s parents study, Josie suddenly got this bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. That’s of course when Connor steps out from the bathroom and comes face to face with Josie. A smirk quickly making its way to Connor’s face as Josie freezes immediately seeing the jock in front of her.

 

“Well hey there Josie.” Connor greets her smugly as he walks forward and begins to close the gap between them.

 

 **Josie glares at the boy,** of course she was going to have to deal with his bs tonight, but Josie wasn’t backing down and decided to just continue on. “Connor,” she says flatly as she tries to brush past him, but Connor roughly grabs onto her forearm.

 

“What’s with the attitude Josie?” Connor says to her harshly, the stench of alcohol clearly coating his breath.

 

“Get your fucking hands off of me Connor!” Josie shouts back at him as she tries to rip her arm away from his grasp but he has too strong of a grip and her words just piss Connor off more.

 

He quickly releases his grip from Josie’s arm to only move and take both of his hands to her shoulders gripping them tightly as he shoves her back against the wall. With her pinned Connor dips his head to Josie’s neck and plants rough kisses against her skin, but he doesn’t stay there long as Josie tries to fight him off of her. She tries to shove him off but he is too strong and has such a tight grip on her shoulders she can barely get a good push off. Josie tries to go a different route and used her legs to kick him off of her, she manages to land a solid kick to his groin but Connor’s weight just falls more on top of her and now he’s livid. He takes his right hand to Josie’s throat as he shoves her back into the wall, making it hard for Josie to breathe. She keeps trying to fight him off and begins to shout but the music is too loud for anyone to hear, but Connor doesn’t care when he back-handedly slaps her across the right side of her face to try and shut Josie up.

 

Josie keeps trying to fight Connor off though, but now panic starts to set in, she could easily throw him off of her with a spell but she has no magic, and in this drunken state Connor seems to somehow be stronger than normal. Connor tries to dip his head back to Josie’s neck once again but Josie manages to land a good slap across his. Connor looks at Josie stunned for a moment and everything pauses but it doesn’t last long as his grip around her neck gets a little tighter.

 

Just as Connor raises his left hand to slap Josie across the face from the other side, a hand quickly grabs his wrist causing both Connor and Josie’s attention to shift to Connors left, just as a fist made contact with his face. Connor falls straight to the ground releasing his grip from Josie as he groaned in pain, as Josie tried to catch her breath as she coughed out for air, her hand immediately going to her now for sure bruised throat. She tried to steady herself against the wall until she felt strong hands take hold of her arms. Josie glances up to see who her savior was to find none other than Hope looking at her with a mix of emotions in her eyes.

 

 **Before either one can say a word** , they hear a groan coming from Connor still on the ground causing Hope to release her grip from Josie and turn her complete attention on the boy on the ground. Hope easily pulled Connor up from the ground by his letterman jacket before throwing him against the wall and punching him now with her right hand to his face. Connor too dazed to really put up much of a fight, Hope early grabs him by the hair of the back of his head and throws him face first into the opposite wall of the hallway, causing a small face shaped dent to appear in the wall. Josie just watched in silence, she could feel Hope’s anger seeping through her skin, the magic that was bleeding through her rage right now was so powerful, Josie was sure she could siphon that magic without even touching Hope.

 

Hope just stood over Connor glaring down at him as he started to stir once again, groaning in pain and letting out a dazed, “What the fuck.” Connor’s words just made Hope even angrier as she grabbed the boy and began walking down the hallway. Hope practically drags Connor by the scruff of his neck into the main part of the party into the huge living area where everyone was gathered. As Hope approached the wolves quickly took notice and started to make room for her and her prey, pushing everyone out of the way as they made a circle. Once enough people were out of the way Hope threw Connor into the center of the circle.

 

“You really don’t know how to take no for an answer do you?” Hope asks the jock as he tries to sit up, a few of his teammates swarming to his side.

 

“Fuck you Mikaelson.” Connor spits out as he literally spit out blood and wiped his mouth.

 

“No, you know what, fuck you Connor!” Hope replies back taking a step forward before she lets her jacket fall from her shoulders, she takes it in her right hand and holds it out to her side knowing Jed was there to take it. “Get your ass up and let’s go.” 

 

“What?!” Connor questioned as he struggled to his feet, clearly not understanding what the girl meant.

 

“Oh come on now Connor, I know you’ve been dying to take a swing at me so come on take your best shot. C’mon, I’ll even let your friends there help you.” Hope tells him as she takes a few steps closer and gestures to the group of football players around him. Connor looked pissed and like he was actually ready to take a swing but his eyes quickly darted from Hope to the ever growing group of people glaring at him and his teammates. Hope picked up on this and looked over her shoulder not surprised to find members of the pack standing behind her, she turned back with a smirk. “Don’t worry about them, it’s just you and me and your five best friends.” She responds with a small wave at the five very large football players standing with Connor. Hope takes a few more steps before she stops about two feet in front of Connor.

 

Josie pushes her way through the crowd until she is standing right in front with Connor and Hope staring each other down face to face. With the sudden commotion Lizzie, MG and Kaleb make their way back into the main house from the backyard. Lizzie scans the room until she spots her sister and she quickly rushes to Josie’s side, “Hey do you know whats-“ Lizzie begins to ask until Josie turns her head to face her and Lizzie clearly sees the new bruise forming on Josie’s neck as well as the small cut to her lip. “What the fuck! Who the fuck did this?!” Lizzie asked enraged and Josie quickly grabbed onto her sisters hands to try and calm her down before she had a melt down.

 

“Hey, hey easy I’m okay, I promise just breath Liz.” Josie tries to reassure her as she stares into her sisters eyes, she takes a deep breath prompting Lizzie to do the same.

 

After a few more deep breaths Lizzie looks Josie in the eyes and asks once again, this time much calmer but still in a very serious tone, “Jo who did this?”

 

Josie turns her gaze back to the confrontation in front of them and lets out a small, “Connor…”

 

“I’m gonna kill him.” Lizzie immediately turns towards Connor ready to jump in on this fight, but Josie quickly wraps her arms around her sister holding her back, just long enough for Kaleb and MG to be by their side. Unable to move, Lizzie settles for shouting instead, “Connor you SON OF A BITCH! Who the fuck gave you the right to put your hands on my sister you piece of SHIT.”

 

The whole room shifts their attention to the blonde twin, a bit shocked by her sudden outburst. Whispers start to fill the room from her words as the other teens start making the connection between Lizzie’s words and Josie’s appearance. Now many of the other students looked at Connor with disgust. Connor quickly glances around the room and this sudden sense of panic begins to set in, clearly feeling the energy of the room turn against him. His anger begins to rise as he turns his attention to Lizzie.

 

“Oh shut up Saltzman, you’re just mad cause I didn’t fuck y-“ before Connor could even attempt to finish his statement, Hope slapped him so hard across the face the boy stumbled back as blood started to drip from his lip.

 

“Go ahead, say something else Connor. Don’t try dragging anyone else into this, right now I’m the one you are dealing with.” Hope instructs as she looks down at the jock before quickly glancing over at the twins. Everyone in the room had seemed to jump at the suddenly loud slap noise when Hope made contact with Connor’s face, it was one of those hits where you felt it just by watching it happen.

 

“Wait. Is that,” Lizzie begins to ask in a soft tone only Josie could hear. Lizzie had this look of shock then, a sudden realization as she starts pointing towards Hope and Connor before she turns back and points at Josie’s bruises, “about this?”

 

“Yup.” Josie answers simply as she kept her focus on Hope who once again stepped closer to Connor and his friends.

 

“Well damn, I guess I won’t kill Connor, Hope will do it for me.” Lizzie adds in as she joins everyone else in the circle and let her eyes fall on the group in front of them.

 

The crowd was dead silent as Connor wiped at his mouth one last time before he rolled his shoulders. Hope just stood there with her hands casually held behind her back as she sent a deadly glare at Connor and his goons, waiting impatiently for him to make a move. Connor let a smirk creep its way onto his lips as he seemed to relax a little, he turned his attention away from Hope to look at his teammates a slight chuckle escaping as he gave his teammates this look like, _is this girl serious right now_. To everyone in the room it seemed like Connor just thought this was a joke and wasn’t going to pick a fight with Hope, but he wasn’t fooling Hope. After a moment passed and Connor thought he waited long enough for Hope to let her guard down, Connor turned his back to her trying to appear like he was about to walk away but instead spun around trying to throw a massive punch at Hope’s face.

 

Hope easily avoided Connor’s punch, side stepping out of the way as she allowed his momentum to carry him forward falling onto the ground past her. Hope smirked as she took a side step now coming face to face with one of the football players charging at her to tackle her to the ground. At the last moment Hope moved out of the boys outstretched hands before she easily sent her knee right into his gut.

 

Everyone just watched in awe as Hope moved like it was some sort of fluid dance as the six boys tried to take her down. Hope easily would slip one punch and then land one of her own on another boy, avoiding another attack as she would duck down and sweep the legs out from under another. It was a flurry of punches, kicks and takedowns, as not a single boy could land a strike on Hope but everyone of Hope’s would make contact with someone. After several failed attempts the six boys stumbled to their feet as they tried to regroup together in front of Hope, who now just seemed to be getting bored with the boys. “Seriously, that’s the best any of you got.”

 

Hope calls them out clearly knowing it would get one last solid charge from the group, which would make it even easier for her to finish this. Right on cue, one boy charged at her taking a swing at her face. Hope quickly ducked under his punch, popping back up and knocking him hard in the face with a left hook sending him to the ground. The next boy approached her more like a boxer and tried to hit her with a right cross to her face, but Hope blocked his punch and immediate hit him with her own right jab to his nose, before she grabbed his head pulling it down to meet her knee as she launched it upwards easily knocking the boy out.

 

The next two boys tried to tag team and fight her at once but Hope easily avoided every punch before eventually catching one boys punch and redirecting it to hit the other, knocking him out as Hope knocked the other with a hit to his jaw.

 

Before Hope can do anything else the last and biggest football player manages to wrap her up in a bear hug, holding her tight as Connor throws a punch to her face, making contact with Hope’s left cheek right below her eye. It seemed like everyone gasped all at once, when Connor made contact with a punch that seemed to have his full weight behind it. Connor looked at Hope smugly who didn’t move, hair blocking her face, causing everyone to believe that Connor might have actually knocked out Hope.

 

Josie watched intently trying to catch any sort of movement, there was no way Connor actually hurt her right? Then Josie and everyone else’s attention shifted to Jed as he suddenly spoke up with his own smirk on his lips, “Oh come on Hope would you please just finish this already, this is getting boring.”

 

Connor and all the humans in the room looked at Jed confused, then their expressions turned to complete shock on surprised as a small chuckle escaped Hope’s lips as she finally looked back up at Connor, “Come on Jed, I was feeling nice, thought it would be a little more dramatic if they managed to get at least one punch in.” Hope answered back with the most menacing Mikaelson smirk she had spread across her lips as she flipped her hair out of her eyes, revealing not even a mark was left on her cheek. “Fine I guess we can finish this now.”

 

As soon as the words left her mouth, Hope forcefully throws her head back making contact with the boy holding her right in the face, causing him to immediately release her from his grasp as he stumbles back falling to the ground. Connor has a panicked look in his eye and just starts swinging wildly at Hope, throwing punches her way praying something can connect. Hope skillfully moves out of the way of each punch before she finally sees her opening, hitting Connor in the face with a left hook and then quickly followed with a jab from her right. Connor completely dazed throws one more haphazardly thrown punch that had almost no force behind it. Hope smirks as she smoothly catches his punch and just like she had done during lunch on Monday turns and flips Connor over her shoulder causing him to crash hard on to the ground.

 

Hope slowly walks back to where she had started at the very beginning of this whole “fight”, standing near the edge of the circle in front of the pack, Hope looked around at her handy work. Jed and Sammy stepped up to Hope’s side as she looked down at Connor and his followers groaning from the floor in pain. Hope let out a quick whistle and the rest of the wolves emerged to the front of the crowd and stood behind Hope ready for her command. “I think Connor and his friends here need to cool off,” Hope comments as the wolves started to pick up Connor and his teammates to their feet, “make sure they have a nice swim.”

 

Hope instructs as Jed hands her back her jacket before he punched Connor in the face as he started to squirm in Rafael and another wolf’s grip. As the wolves dragged the football players towards pool in the backyard with practically the entire crowd following, Hope made a b-line directly to Josie and her friends. Hope paused for moment to look at Kaleb, “Get a couple of vamps and compel those idiots for me please. If anyone asks them, boys from Ravenscroft were the ones that beat the shit out of them, but let them remember I’m the one that did that to them and I will gladly do it again if I have to.”

 

Kaleb just nods in response as he pulls MG and a few other vamps along with him towards the pool. Without saying a word Hope turned her attention to the twins, Lizzie gives Hope a grateful smile and Hope nods back in response before she turned her attention to Josie. Again without saying anything Hope just took the younger girls right hand in her left before leading her out the front door. Hope led Josie out to the driveway where the flood lights fully illuminated the whole space, letting Hope clearly see every detail of Josies face. Suddenly Hope stops and turns to Josie when they reach her car parked in the driveway, tossing her jacket on the hood of the car as she seems to examine Josie. Hope has this stern look on her face but Josie can see the concern in her eyes, with Josie’s hand still in hers, Hope pulls Josie in a little closer as she takes a small step forward.

 

“Hope what are we-“ Josie started but her words got caught in her throat as she felt a chill run down her spine as Hope’s right hand gently touched her cheek. Her eyes clearly fixated on the spot where Connor had hit her, Hope ran her fingers over that spot as if Josie was a delicate flower. Josie could see the anger still behind Hope’s eyes still clearly upset about Connor’s actions. Then Hope releases Josie’s hand and she immediately misses the older girls touch, that is until Hope places her hand to cup Josie’s other cheek. Hope rests her left thumb under Josie’s chin so she can tilt the younger girls head allowing her a full view of Josie’s neck. Josie can literally feel herself shake as Hope runs her fingers down her newly bruised neck, it takes everything within Josie to hold back a satisfied groan from the sensation of Hope’s fingers on her skin.

 

Then suddenly Hope drops her hands down to Josie’s waist and before the younger girl could even process what was happening, Hope pulled her in for a hug as she buried her face into Josie’s neck. Josie relaxes into Hope’s embrace, she feels safe in the shorter girls arms and everything to seems so right in this moment. When Hope starts to pull her face away from Josie’s neck, Josie is prepared for the conversation the two are going to have about what just happened. What Josie wasn’t expecting though, was to feel Hope’s lips against her skin, leaving gentle kisses on her bruised neck. Chills ran down Josie’s spine as Hope’s lips made their way up her neck, kissing every bruised mark. Josie could tell though with every kiss, this wasn’t some sexual moment or some sort of possessive act, every kiss was soft and gentle as if Hope was trying to kiss the pain away. Every kiss felt like an apology, as if Hope wanted to tell her _I’m sorry that this happened_ , or _I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner._

 

When Hope finishes on Josie’s neck, she slowly pulls away but stops herself when the two girls faces are nearly centimeters apart, as Hope glances down at the spot where Connor hit Josie across the face cutting Josie’s lip. Hope hesitates for only a moment before she leans in a leaves a quick kiss at the edge of Josie’s lips. The contact makes Josie want to lean in and fully meet Hope’s lips with her own, but the tribrid is too quick for her as she fully pulls away and takes a small step back leaving Josie in a bit of a daze. She looks at Hope curiously, there are a swirl of emotions running through her right now and by the look in Hope’s eyes the same could be said about the older girl.

 

After a moment Josie finally speaks up, “Hope?” Josie questions just as Hope kneels down, pulling up her pant leg and pulling something out of her boot.

 

When Hope stands back up she reveals to have a pocket knife in her hand as she flips it open to reveal the blade. “Hope what are you doing?” Josie questions again, Hope glances up to her for a moment before she takes the blade to her hand and slices at her palm.

 

“Here, drink my blood, it will help heal up your bruising so your parents won’t know what happened.” Hope finally speaks as she extends out her hand for Josie to take.

 

Josie hesitates looking at the deep cut in Hope’s palm, Josie has never had to drink blood before and even though it is a kind gesture, it feels like a very intimate moment for the two of them. As Josie glances up from Hope’s hand to her ocean blue eyes, Josie no longer sees the anger and hatred Hope held in her eyes for Connor, they had gotten softer with this look of concern. Josie didn’t say a word, she simply gave Hope a slight nod as she took a hold of Hope’s wrist and pulled her hand up to her mouth.

 

When Josie’s lips connect with Hope’s palm, Josie notices her physically relax into her touch, she’s not quite sure if it’s because Josie accepted to drink her blood or if it was the contact of Josie’s lips on her skin. Maybe it was a little bit of both. Josie isn’t quite sure how much of Hope’s blood she is supposed to drink, so she just keeps sucking on Hope’s palm until the cut heals. Before she releases her grip on Hope’s wrist though Josie leaves a quick kiss on the older girls palm where it was cut only moments ago. A small makes its way on both of their lips by Josie’s actions, as she let go on Hope’s wrist but instead of letting her hand drop, Hope took a small step forward, placing her hand on Josie’s cheek as she ran her thumb across her lips. Hope pauses for a moment as she glanced over the spots where Connor had left his mark, she sighed in a bit of relief as the marks seemed to already be fading away.

 

When Hope finally looks up to look Josie in the eyes, she lets her hand move up her cheek until her fingers tangle into Josie’s hair her thumb now grazing her cheek when she finally asks her, “Are you okay?”

 

“I am now, thanks to you.” Josie answers just above a whisper, with a slight smile but then it all starts to hit her and her whole mood changes. Her breathing starts to become a little more panicked as her eyes starts to burn at the new sensation of tears welling up in her eyes hits her. “Hope if you didn’t come when you did...if you didn’t stop him, I-”

 

“Hey hey shhhh, just take a breathe Jo, easy. There you go.” Hope instructs the younger girl as she tilts Josies head down a little as she reaches up to kiss the taller girl on the forehead before she looks her in the eyes once again. “I promise you, Connor is never going to touch you again or else I’m actually going to kill him. Okay?”

 

Josie just nods as she tries to settle down her breathing. Hope releases her grip from Josie’s face, letting her hands fall to the younger girls waist where she pulls her tightly into her body. Josie automatically wraps her arms around Hope’s shoulders as she buries her face into the older girl neck letting the tears flow from her face. Hope snaked her arms around Josies waist as she pulled her in tightly, just enough for Josie to know that Hope was right there for her but not so tight that she could actually hurt her. They stayed like this for a few moments, Josie wrapped protectively in Hope’s arms as she tried to settle down her tears. When Josie finally starts to relax she lets herself sink more into Hope’s touch, without even thinking Josie nuzzles her face into the crock of Hope’s neck as she takes a deep sigh. With one arm still wrapped around Josie’s waist Hope begins to rub soothing circles into Josies back as her right hand slips under the younger girls jacket, only Josie’s thin tank top acting as a barrier between Hope’s fingers and her skin. As Josie’s breathing finally evens out the younger girl takes one last deep sigh that leaves goosebumps against Hope’s skin, the older girl tries not to shiver and instead pulls Josie in as close as possible.

 

After another moment of silence passes the two girls finally start to loosen their grip on the other, but before she began to pull away, without even a second thought Josie left a sweet kiss on Hope’s neck causing the older girl to release a satisfied hum. Hope released her grip on around Josie’s waist with her right hand letting it travel up to Josie’s cheek before she tangled her fingers into Josie’s hair and stopping the younger girl from pulling too far away from her. Josie’s fingers mindlessly played with the hairs on the back of Hope’s neck as she lets her hands rest there. They both rested their foreheads against one another as they breathed each other in, their eyes both shut until Hope spoke up.

 

“You gonna be okay?” Hope questioned in a gentle voice as her thumb brushed against Josie’s cheek.

 

“I will be.” Josie answers softly as she pulls away just enough to get a full view of Hope’s face as their eyes meet, “Again, all thanks to you.”

 

They both seemed to be lost in the others eyes as if the world around them had disappeared, the sounds of the party behind them turning into white noise. They finally break eye contact when Josie glances down at Hope’s lips and decides to take a chance as she slowly leans forward.

 

But Hope is hesitant as she speaks up, “Jos are you-“ but she doesn’t say much before Josie stops her.

 

“Hope, stop talking.” Hope just smirked at Josie’s words and began to lean in as well, just as their lips were about to meet a noise from the tree line snapped Hope out of the moment causing her to stop and turn her attention away from Josie.

 

Josie opened her eyes and looked at Hope puzzled, “Hope?” Hope’s eyes had shifted gold as she stared out into the darkened woods.

 

“Josie get back inside.” Hope instructs her in a stern voice without letting her gaze move from the woods, as she loosens her grip around Josie.

 

However Josie didn’t move, her grip getting a little tighter as she moved her hands from Hope’s neck to her shoulders, not willing to let the girl go, “But-“

 

Before Josie can even begin to argue Hope stops her as she finally turns her attention to the younger girl. Her eyes a full yellow glow, with a bit of fierceness behind them as well as concern. This time when Hope speaks, it’s more of a plea as tells Josie, “Please Jo, go back inside.”

 

Instead of arguing Josie just nodded her head in response, letting her hands drop to her side as she let out a whispered, “okay,” but before she could turn and head back up to the house, Hope grabs her by her wrist causing her to freeze. Josie just looks at her confused, with out giving her much time to think though Hope quickly leans in and kissed her on the cheek then began making her way towards the woods.

 

When Josie made it to the door she already hated how she could no longer see Hope who had disappeared into the tree line. She stood there with her hand on the door, questioning if she should go against what Hope asked her to do, or to just go back to the party. Hope was a tribrid, the most powerful supernatural being she has ever of course she would be okay. Just as Josie started to turn the knob she heard a piercing scream coming from the tree line and without even think Josie started sprinting in that direction.

 

As she approaches and broke through the tree line, Josie quickly spotted Hope’s form standing not too far away from her. She seemed to be completely fine and was holding something in her hands, once she was only a few feet away Josie spoke up, “Hope, are you o-“

 

Hope turned to face Josie with blood dripping down her body, a heart in each one of her hands and at least four bodies laying limp around her. Hope knew she looked like a monster, she could feel her k-nines we out as blood dripped from her mouth, her eyes were a golden glow as her hands were soaked in blood. The look of pure shock and horror on Josie’s face just made Hope’s heart sink, she really was a monster and she still could have gotten Josie hurt.

 

_I should have known better._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright hopefully this chapter was worth the wait and made sense. Sorry again it took me so long to update and I'll pre-apologize now because it will probably be awhile before I update this story again. There is a new story I want to work on and it's been WAY too long since I've updated screw your loophole, add in my new work schedule, things are unfortunately not going to pop up that often.
> 
> So what did you all think, did it make sense or am I going to have to edit this then repost? let me know and as always thanks for reading!


	9. Don’t give up on her, okay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all have waited long enough for this update, so enjoy. Check the end of chapter for notes.
> 
> As always thank you so much for reaching and apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors.

Josie was almost in shock as she took in the scene in front of her, Hope standing barely ten feet in front of her with blood dripping from her body. With the four bodies littering the forest floor Josie could only assume none of that was Hope’s blood covering her body. Still though there was that little bit of fear in the back of Josie’s mind that Hope might actually be hurt and apparently Hope noticed that fear too. Hope though, doesn’t realize the cause of Josie’s fear because when Josie finally meets Hope’s gaze, the young siphoner notices the almost hurt expression in Hope’s eyes.

 

“Hope?” Josie questions, her voice is almost hesitant, a piece of her still unsure if any of this is actually real as she watches Hope drop the hearts she was holding in her hands and wipes the blood from her mouth against her shoulder

 

Hope doesn’t hesitate though when she answers, “You should have stayed inside.” Her voice is low and you could almost hear her heart breaking with every word she speaks.

 

Josie knows there is more going on here and she can feel Hope starting to pull away and close herself off from her. Josie can start to feel her heart start to race as the panic of losing Hope starts to set in. She can feel her slipping away and all she wants to do is pull Hope close to her and hold on tight. Josie starts to move closer to Hope as she speaks again. “Hope what-“

 

But Hope cuts her off, “I’m sorry Jo.”

 

“Wait H-“ Josie starts but Hope is faster than she is.

 

**_“Patere”_** Hope whispers as she lifts her hands in front of her as if she was about to shove someone, which was basically what she did.

 

Before Josie could say or do anything, Hope’s spell pushes Josie sending her flying all the way back to the edge of the woods. Josie lands on her feet a bit shaken as she quickly looks around, her eyes going wide when she realizes what Hope just did. She looks back into the woods and immediately starts running back to where she found Hope, but when she gets there Hope is gone along with all of the bodies. The only remanence is the blood stained grass and roots of the forrest floor. Josie practically drops to her knees as she can feel the tears start to well up at the corners of her eyes. As she sinks back sitting on her heels staring off into the darkness of the forrest Josie lets out a broken whisper with tears escaping down her cheeks, “Please not again…”

 

—————————————————————————————————

_*Three Years Ago*_

 

_It was the last Saturday of summer vacation and Hope was spending the day at the Saltzman’s house like she had done for most of the summer. The trio had been inseparable for most of the new year, but it hadn’t always been like this. Hope was 6 years old when the Mikaelson family moved back to Mystic Falls, and at that age Hope already knew and understood the kind of death and pain that followed her family. Hope was well aware that with the last name Mikaelson, automatically came with enemies, people who hated you, wanted to hurt you, wanted to see you dead or worse, see you suffer by hurting the ones closes to you. Hope also came to understand, this is why Mikaelson’s keep others at an arms length. Whether it was because they didn’t trust you or because they were too afraid they were going to get you killed, and yet somehow each one of her aunts and uncles had found someone to call their own. Hope though was still hesitant, she saw the pain her family suffered when they lost people, she heard the stories of Camille, Jackson, her uncle Finn, and many others, and she wasn’t sure she could handle losing someone close to her like that._

 

_So Hope kept her distance from pretty much all of the kids her age and spent all her time with her family. Enjoying every moment she could with her family from learning how to fight and practicing magic, to lessons about art, music and writing, Hope seemed to have teachers in every subject she could ever need when it came to life. When Hope turned 10 though, Hayley made the decision that Hope needed to start interacting more with the children her age and after a little bit of convincing Klaus agreed. They couldn’t force her to hang out with the children her age while at school but during her free time Hayley or one of her aunts would take her to hang out with one of the factions. Since she hadn’t activated her Vampire side her aunt Rebekah wouldn’t take her to see the faction often but instead would take her into town and all the spots where most of the children her age would be. Hayley would bring her by to spend time with the pack but she hadn’t activated her werewolf gene yet either and there weren’t really any children who had activated their gene yet either at such an early age. Most of the children that had activated their gene were much older and would treat her like a little sibling, which was still good but just wasn’t the same thing. So basically that meant Hope was spending most of her time with Aunt Freya at her bookstore with all the other witches and that is when she met the Saltzman twins._

 

_The twins were a grade below Hope which was why Hope hadn’t met them in school, she barely payed any attention to the kids her own age, there was no reason she was going to pay attention to anyone younger. Although Freya and Davina had already started teaching Hope magic since the day they moved to Mystic Falls, Freya would still bring Hope along with her for her Saturday morning magic lessons with the other witches in town. It was one of these Saturday lessons when Hope finally met the twins. There was something different about the girls though, as time went on, Hope noticed some sort of pull she felt towards the twins. She didn’t understand why but she felt drawn to them, like she wanted or just needed to be around them. It took some time but eventually Hope started to let the sisters in, their conversations expanding from discussing spells to their likes and dislikes, from only seeing each other and saying hi on Saturdays to actually talking to each other in passing at school._

 

_It was slow at first, Hope still very hesitant and determined to keep others at an arms length but the more and more she started to let the sisters in the more and more the twins wanted to be a part of Hope’s life. So the girls day by day started to chip away at Hope’s walls and the older girl let them. The trio were constantly learning spells and practicing magic together, Hope would even let the twins siphon magic from her, it came to the point where it just felt natural for the girls to take her hand but Hope could tell there was a difference when Lizzie would take her hand verses Josie. Hope would feel comfortable anytime Lizzie took her hand like she and Lizzie could be best friends. With Josie though it was different, there was this spark whenever Josie took Hope’s hand and butterflies that seemed to fill Hope’s stomach every time they touched. Hope didn’t know what it meant, she just knew she didn’t want that feeling to go away._

 

_So now here they were, it took nearly 3 years for them to be at this point but the twins and Hope could actually say they were truly friends. Now though_ _was the last weekend they could spend together before school starts and Hope would be starting her freshman year of High school leaving the twins behind at the middle school._

 

_The trio had been in the backyard just talking about anything and everything when they decided to set up the fire pit for them to make s’mores as it was nearly dusk. Lizzie practically sprinted into the house to prepare the necessary ingredients for s’mores causing Josie and Hope to just laugh, Lizzie clearly not wanting to be the one to grab the fire wood. Josie let out one last chuckle as she rose from her chair knowing she had to grab the firewood on the other side of the house._

 

_“Want to help me?” Josie asked a little shyly looking down at Hope who was already looking up at her, causing a small blush to immediately start to make its way on Josie’s cheeks._

 

_Hope gave Josie a smile as she answered, “Yeah sure.” Which caused a small smile to appear on Josie’s lips and without even thinking she offered her hand out for Hope to take to help her up. Hope smiled a little wider as she took Josie’s hand without hesitation. Josie pulled Hope up with a little more force than needed causing Hope to stumble into her, which nearly resulted in the two girls bumping heads but instead leaving only inches separating the two of them. A small laugh escapes both their lips at the situation but then for a moment both girls forgot what they were doing, their hands still linked and the were still so close Josie’s heart nearly stopped._

 

_One of them simply needed to lean in just an inch and their lips would meet but before Josie could even process this thought Hope’s phone began to ring causing both girls to nearly jump apart. Hope’s cheeks were a bright shade of red as she quickly pulled her phone from her back pocket to find her mom calling her “Sorry it’s my mom I’ve got to take this.” Hope tells Josie apologetically, a hint of embarrassment laced in her voice as she slowly starts to back away from the younger girl._

 

_There is a flash of disappointment in Josie’s eyes but she tries to wave it away with her hand as she tells Hope, “It’s okay, answer it.” Josie tells her with a smile, trying to reassure the older girl everything was okay as she begins to walk over to the other side of the house giving herself a chance for her heart rate to settle back down._

 

_Hope watches as Josie walks away and tries to shake the thought away what might have just happened, she takes as deep breath as she turns her back to the house and walks closer to the edge of the backyard. Hope smiles as she answers the phone with a hint of sarcasm, “Hi Mom, yes I’m still alive, you can tell dad to calm down already.” Hope can almost hear the smirk form on her mom’s lips before she answers her._

 

_“Ha ha very funny, but that’s not why I’m calling.” Hayley tells with her with a slightly more serious tone than Hope was expecting._

 

_*Oh crap what did I do*, Hope thought to herself before she responded, “Okay so why are you calling mom?”_

 

_“You get everything done before your first day of school?” Hayley asks her, clearly knowing the answer but Hope was pretty sure she finished everything she needed to get done before school started on Monday._

 

_“Yeah I’m pretty sure I did.” Hope answered truly believing she did._

 

_“Oh really?” Hayley questioned again giving her daughter one last chance, but when Hope didn’t answer Hayley continued, “So then why did I just find a half written report on your summer reading assignment just sitting on your desk?”_

 

_Hope immediately cringed when she remembered, yeah she definitely didn’t finish that report, “Whoops,” Hope answered sheepishly._

 

_“Uh huh,” Hayley answered only slightly amused but clearly still in mom mode, “I should drag you back home right now to finish this report instead of letting you sleep over there tonight.”_

 

_“Oh cmon mom no, please let me stay.” Hope pleaded as she briefly looked back over at the house behind her, her gaze falling on Josie as she drops off a few pieces of wood next to the fire pit before going back for more, “You know this gonna be the last time I get to hang out over here for a while.”_

 

_Hope practically held her breath as she waited for her mom to answer, “Fine, but I’m picking you up first thing in the morning and you aren’t doing anything else until you finish that report.”_

 

_“Yes!” Hope answered excitedly, “I promise I will get it done, thank you, you’re the best mom ever!”_

 

_Hayley lets out a small chuckle as she answers back, “Yes I know, and you better remember that.”_

 

_This causes Hope to laugh as well, until something in the distance catches Hope’s attention causing her to go silent. Hayley senses the sudden change in her daughter and quickly questions, “Hope what’s wrong?”_

 

_Hope doesn’t take her eyes off the tree line “I thought I saw something, it’s noth-“ before she could claim it was nothing, Hope spots yellow eyes starring back at her. “Mom someone else is here.”_

 

_“Hope get back in that house, NOW!” Hayley practically orders her as Hope can hear her mom shuffling around the house preparing to head over to find her._

 

_“You’re fast mom but not that fast.” Hope begins as she starts walking towards the intruder still starring her down._

 

_“Hope you listen to me right now-“ Hayley was about to go in full mama wolf/alpha mode but Hope continues on._

 

_“I got this mom, I’ll hold them off until you get here.” Hope tells her confidently as she makes her way closer and closer to the golden eyes starring at her, letting the phone slip from her ear and dropping it to her side._

 

_“HOPE!” Hayley yells into the phone right before she hears Hope end the call. “Damnit Hope.”_

 

_Hope doesn’t let her eyes leave this mysterious figure as she makes her final approach, “Is there something I can help you with?” Hope questions as she stops a few yards away from the intruder, now getting a better look at his form. “You know starring at young girls is pretty creepy right? I could just call the cops on you.”_

 

_Hope notices the small smirk that appears on his lips, “If you were going to call the cops you would have done that already instead of walking all the away out here just to say hi,” the unknown man stepped out from his spot beside the trees giving her a clear view of him. His clothes looked tattered and warn out, the scruff and dirt on his face only further raised her suspicions that maybe he could be from one of the mountain packs. A moment of silence passes as this strange man just stares down Hope standingmaybe six feet ahed of her._

 

_It doesn’t take long for Hope to become impatient and she speaks up with a bit of annoyance and snakiness in her tone, “So are you just going to creepily keep staring at me, or are you going to tell me what you are doing here and what you want?” She questions him with a bit of a glare._

 

_The man simply smirks when he answers, “Ah there it is. You’ve got the same fire in your eyes as your Mother.”_

 

_His words catches Hope of guard for a moment, “You know my mom?” She questions him, her defenses down for a moment, pretty much most of the enemies that Hope has taken on or known about in her life were due to the Mikaelson side of her family._

 

_“Yes I do actually.” The man comments as he begins to slowly walk in a big circle around Hope as he speaks, “You see years ago before you were born, your mother’s pack and my pack well…we had a little bit of a disagreement and your mother and her pack ended up killing most of my friends.”_

 

_His words immediate cause Hope to tense up, her defenses back up again as he continues to circle her as he speaks, not really paying attention to Hope’s now clinched fist of furrowed brow as she stares him down. “So you know it has taken some time but we’ve finally tracked her down and you know what? We think it’s time for a little pay back and what better way than to kill her precious daughter.”_

 

_As his final words pass his lips, one word catches her attention and again there is a bit of surprise there that catches Hope off guard for a second as she voices the one thing she wasn’t quite expecting, “Wait. You said we?”_

 

_Hope watches as the mans smirk turned into an evil grin. Hope immediately took a defensive stance ready to take on this man and potentially large pack when a voice from behind her catches Hope off guard._

 

_“Hope what’s going on?” Hope’s head practically snaps back to turn and find a curious Josie standing ten feet away from her. This has always been Hope’s greatest fear, this is why Hope wanted to keep others away._

 

_“Josie get out of here! Get back to the house NOW!” Hope yells out at Josie, but before Josie can even move two wolves drop down from the tree above her, each taking one of Josie’s arms in their grass as she knocked down to her knees and one holds a knife to her throat._

 

_Josie let’s out a surprised scream and Hope loses it, “NO!_ **_**ICTUS!**”_ ** _Hope shouts out the spell throwing her hands out and send a powerful shock wave that sends everyone around her flying. The shock wave sends bodies into tree and helped reveal two more wolves, bumping up the bad guy counter to five._

 

_Hope started moving on pure instinct as she turns around just in time to avoid the apparent leaders swing. Hope smoothly avoided the mans attacks and gets a few of her own punches in before the sounds of shuffling feet heading towards her catches her attention._ **_“Patere!”_ ** _Hope calls out as she lifts her hands up directly at her attackers trying to come at her from the sides, sending them both flying directly into some trees. The force from the impact knocking the two attackers out and causing the trees to fall. Hope doesn’t get much time to admire her work though as the leader of this little pack manages to land a punch to Hope’s face knocking her to the ground. As he began to approach her Hope shouts out another Telekinesis Spell pushing him away from her,_ **_“Icaeus!”_ **

 

_The spell sends him flying back but it isn’t as strong as the others allowing him to land on his feet, and causing him to smirk at Hope. This just pisses Hope off so before he has a chance to do anything Hope throws another spell his way,_ **_“Vados!”_ ** _Suddenly the trees around the man started to explode and the tree fragments like shards of glass started flying directly at him. Hope let out a small breath of relief as she watched the chunks of wood embedded in his skin and she screamed out in pain. Again Hope’s relief didn’t last long as the sound of Josie’s attackers shuffling behind her catches Hope’s attention. Hope turns around to find Josie laying up against the trunk of a tree, a large gash of the girls forehead as she appears to has been knocked out colliding with the tree._

 

_Guilt immediately consumed Hope, she was so terrified that Josie was going to be killed when she wasn’t 100 percent focused when she did her spell, not only did she send all of the attackers flying but Josie as well. As Hope stumbled up to her feet the attackers had reached Josie, Hope heard the younger girl groan as one of the attackers pulled her to her feet as the other smirked at Hope with the dagger in his hand, taunting her as he slowly starts to push it into Josie’s chest right under her collar bone, causing Josie to scream._

 

_Without a second thought, Hope stands tall and takes a breath before she says her next spell,_ **_“Me ne de qual suurentaa!”_ **

 

_Suddenly both attackers necks snap and their bodies drop to the ground as Josie falls to a knee. Hope immediately sprints to be at Josie’s side, “Josie hey hey easy, you’re okay, you’re gonna be okay,” Hope says not quite sure to if it’s to reassure Josie or herself as she gently moves the younger girl to lean against the tree trunk once again. Josie is still in a daze from her head wound but cries out in pain as she moves just enough to make the knife in her chest shift. Luckily Hope killed the attackers before they could fully push the dagger in, Hope readjusts a takes a knee at Josie’s side, placing her left hand on the knife and her right hand Josie’s cheek. “Hey Josie, Josie look at me okay?”_

 

_Josie leans into Hope’s touch, turning her head so she could face Hope, “Hope, everything hurts.”_

 

_“Shhh hey don’t talk okay, I know it hurts but I promise I’m gonna make it better okay?” Hope tells Josie as calmly as possible, maybe if Josie wasn’t hit in the head she would have noticed the hint of fear and panic in Hope’s but she doesn’t. Josie just gives Hope the smallest nod possible as she mouths an “okay”._

 

_Hope looks down at the knife and then back at Josie who is still looking at her, Hope takes a deep breath before she explains to Josie what she’s going to do next. “Alright Jo, I’m gonna pull the knife out okay.” Hope tells her looking Josie right in the eyes._

 

_“I’m sorry this in going to hurt,” Hope says with sympathy, as Josie’s left hand reaches up to grab onto Hope’s forearm, a silent indication to go ahead. “Okay, one, two-“ Hope begins but pulls the knife out immediately after two and Josie lets out a yelp of pain._

 

_“Fuck!” Josie lets out with a gasp, and if they weren’t in this situation Hope probably would have laughed, “What happened to 3, huh?” Josie questioned with a little bit of a whine, now this does manage to get a small chuckle out of Hope._

 

_“I’m sorry Jo, but you would have tensed up and that could have made it worse. Now hey put pressure on this for right now okay.” Hope comments, giving her a small smile as she places Josie’s right hand over her wound, as Josie smiles back at her Hope is filled with a sense of relief. This little moment between them is cut short though by an angry voice._

 

_“You little shit!” Hope turns her attention from Josie to the leader once again, as he stumbles towards them, pieces of wood still sticking out of his skin. Hope just stared him down with a new sense of rage building up inside of her, that Mikaelson hate and anger making its way to the surface. “Well come on you little bitch lets go!” He calls out at her, like he actually has some sort of chance to defeat her._

 

_Hope says nothing as she rises to her feet, if looks alone could kill this man would already be dead, but it didn’t matter because he soon would be. Hope didn’t say a word to him as she approached, with the knife still in her left hand she simply started to lift her right hand towards him as she began to chant another spell._ **_“Le specter tre colo ves bestia.”_ ** _Suddenly the leader dropped to his knees as he reached up to his heart. Hope started out as a whisper but as Hope’s chants became louder, her extended hand began to close into a fist as if she was actually hold his heart, crushing it in her hand. In reality thought that’s what she really was doing, his heart was simply just in his chest._

 

_The man screamed out in pain as he felt his heart being crushed by the force of Hope’s magic, he was on his hands and knees when she stopped in front of him. Hope grabbed the man by his hair and pulled his head up so he was now on his knees, then at the very moment he met Hope’s gaze she stabbed him in the gut. With her grip still on the mans head Hope stops her incantation and leans forward to whisper in his ear, “You fucked with the wrong person and the wrong family.”_

 

_As Hope pulled away and took a step back from the man, she released her grip from his head and continued the incantation one last time._ **_“Le specter tre colo ves bestia.”_ ** _This time fully closing her first and pulling it back to her body, Hope pulls the mans heart out from his chest, the heart now in her hands before his body could even hit the ground. Hope’s breathing became rough laced with hate and rage as she looked down at the dead body at her feet. She was so wrapped up in her anger she hardly heard Josie call out to her, until the younger girl practically screamed, “Hope LOOK OUT!”_

_Hope turned to see one of the attackers who she thought was knocked out had gotten up and headed right at her, but before Hope could do anything a large dark grey and brown wolf caught the attacker in its mouth as it began ripping their body to shreds. Not taking any chances the wolf went over to the final body killing the last remaining attacker. Hope breathed out a sigh as she watched her mother work, a small smirk on her face as she finishes cleaning up her mess._

 

_“Hope?” This time Josie’s voice easily catches the older girls attention, Hope turns to find Josie struggling to stand up leaning all of her weight on the tree for support. When Josie’s eyes meet Hope’s though, Hope finds almost terror and complete shock in them, as she hears an audible gasp escape Josie’s lips. Then it hit Hope, she looked down at her blood stained hands and clothes, and the crushed heart that was still in her hand. Just then Caroline along with Lizzie and her aunt Freya came sprinting up Josie’s side._

 

_“Hope?” This time it was her aunt Freya’s voice that catches Hope’s attention, this time when she raises her gaze to meet her aunt Freya’s she catches the terrified and shocked looks from the Saltzman’s but her aunt didn’t flinch, “Hope, your eyes are gold, you activated your werewolf gene.” Freya tells her calmly as she had taken in the scene around them, causing Hope to do the same._

 

_That’s why Josie looked at her like that, Hope began to go into panic mode, she was a murder and a monster. Again Hope looked down at her bloodied hands before she looked back up at Josie was was also covered in blood, the difference between her and Hope though, Josie was covered in her own blood while Hope had someone else’s. Hope started to become anxious, everything she wanted to avoid, the pain, the hurt, the death, she couldn’t stop it. She should have known better, she is a Mikaelson after all, she was bound to kill someone and possibly get someone else killed._

 

_Hayley still in wolf form rubbed up and encircled her daughter feeling the shift in her emotions, Hope could feel herself starting to break down, and the tears were starting to form. Hope gave her mother’s wolf for a tight squeeze as she took one last glance at Josie, the girl who she almost got killed. Without a second thought Hope squeezed her eyes shut as she hoped onto her mother back and without looking back the two set off back for the Mikaelson Mansion._

 

_Josie just watched in more than just physical pain as Hope left without another word. Freya helped Josie with a healing spell before she collected Hope’s things and went home to check on her niece. After that day nothing was the same, Hope no longer trained with the witches and instead spent most of her time with the pack and learning more about her wolf side. Josie kept praying Hope would come back, that Hope would one day call to hang out, but that day never came. It was like Hope had become a ghost, Josie never saw her, only catching passing glimpses of the girl. When it finally comes time for the twins to start their freshman year of High school, there is a part of Josie thinks that maybe there is a chance for her and Hope to reconnect. Now that they were once again in the same school maybe she had a chance. It wasn’t until Josie spotted Hope walking through the quad with the pack following behind her, did Josie realize this wasn’t the same Hope anymore. It wasn’t until that moment that Josie could finally admit that day a year a go, that day changed everything. That day changed everything because Hope Mikaelson promised herself, she wasn’t going to be the reason for Josie Saltzman’s death._

 

——————————————————

****Back at the Mikaelson Mansion****

 

Klaus was painting in his art studio while Hayley read in the living room when the sudden smell of blood caught both of their attentions, causing them to head towards the back porch. When they opened the door they were surprised to find their daughter covered in blood walking towards them dragging four dead bodies. They were immediately at Hope’s side, both parents frantically checking their daughter making sure she was alright.

 

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” Hope tried to reassure her parents releasing her grip on her attackers bodies and taking hold of a hand from both of her parents. Instantly Klaus and Hayley redirected their attention from their daughters body to her face.

 

Klaus raised his right hand to Hope’s cheek as he spoke, “Hope, what happened?”

 

“I spotted them watching the party deep within the tree line. They clearly knew who I am and when I asked who they are and what they wanted they just said they were ‘old friends’,” Hope emphasized with air quotes and a small chuckle but neither of her parents flinched, so she continued on. “They said they wanted to draw you guys out and they were going to take me to do it, and either I could go with them quietly or they could make things messy…”

 

Hope paused, she looked down at her blood stained clothes and hands before she looked back up at her parents with a tear escaping down her cheek. She looked her mother in the eyes when she started to speak again, “They threatened attacking everyone at the party…” Hope paused again as she now turned to her father, “They threatened to kill Josie.”

 

Both Hayley and Klaus stood up a little straighter at Hope’s words, immediately looking to the other, Hayley quickly noticing the veins in Klaus’ neck starting to pop out in anger as Klaus noticed Hayley’s eyes shift gold. They both took a breath before Hayley pulled Hope in for a tight hug. Hope instantly relaxed into her mother’s arms as she rubbed small circled into Hope’s back, Hayley glanced over at Klaus just as she felt his hand fall to the small of her back as his other rested on the top of Hope’s head.

“Hope?” Klaus spoke softly getting his daughters attention, when she finally looked up at him he asked her possibly the most important question of the night, “Do you know who they were?”

 

Hope shook her head no but took a small step back causing Hayley to release her grip on her, as Hope reached into her back pocket pulling out a coin, “One of them was messing around with this coin, he just kept flipping it while the other was talking and threatening to attack everyone, I don’t know what it means though.” Hope explained as she handed the coin to her father.

 

It didn’t take long for Klaus to examine the coin to know exactly who these attackers were, “Night Walkers.” Klaus practically growled out through gritted teeth.

 

Hayley looked up at him a bit shocked as he hands her the coin before he inspected the bodies, checking each one of their hands to see if any had daylight rings. Hayley examined the coin in disbelief as she ran her thumb over the golden bird on one face of the coin before flipping it to the other side to reveal the Nazi symbol on the back. She let out a frustrated breath before she switches her attention back to Klaus as she speaks, “This shouldn’t be possible, we killed them all off back in New Orleans.”

 

“We did, we killed every Night Walker in New Orleans, but we didn’t kill off their ideals.” Klaus confirms as he takes one last look at the bodies before stepping over them to get back to his original spot continuing to speak, "Who knows how many people August and Greta were really able to influence and convert to their ways. Greta could have been planning for her demise and sent off some of her followers to hide and one day return for revenge, maybe they are a different group that heard what happened in New Orleans, I don’t know but these were definitely Night Walkers.” Klaus added some extra emphasis as he took the coin from Hayley’s hand and held it up between the three of them. There was a brief pause as all three just stared at the coin in Klaus’ hand, then Hayley spoke up breaking the silence.

 

“We need to set up a curfew now! None of the supernatural kids can be out at night until we figure out where these Night Walkers are.” Hayley states looking Klaus dead in the eyes, he doesn’t bat an eye clearly agreeing with her.

 

“I’ll call Elijah and Kol.” Klaus simply responds as he and Hayley both begin to turn back towards the house.

 

“I’ll call Freya and Rebekah.” Hayley answers with a nod in full understanding of what the next steps were.

 

“Okay, WAIT!” Hope shouts, causing both of her parents to freeze realizing they were so wrapped up in their thoughts they nearly forgot about their blood covered daughter still standing there in complete confusion. Hope lets out a huff as she steps forward to catch up with her parents as she speaks, “Who are the Night Walkers?”

 

Hayley and Klaus looked at each other taking a brief moment to silently decide who would explain their situation. It didn’t take long before Klaus started to answer Hope’s question. “Long story short sweet heart, they are vampire purists, basically Nazis but for the supernatural world. They believe that Vampires are the superior race and that all supernaturals need to be reminded of that.” Klaus looked over to Hayley who continued on to explain.

 

“They despise witches and they absolutely HATE werewolves.” Hayley tells Hope as she pulls her a little closer to them, Hayley places her hands on Hope’s shoulders as she looks her daughter in the eyes as she continues on to explain. “If these are truly Night Walkers, they are going to come after the pack, try to wipe us out. They will try and convert the vampires to follow them or kill them if they refuse, and they will try and kill any witch that stands in their way.”

 

Instantly Hayley and Klaus could feel this surge of magical energy spilling from Hope as she clenched her jaw and fists from this new information. Hope takes a deep breath trying to control her anger before she ended up releasing a burst of magical energy that could destroy the entire Mikaelson Mansion. “How do we kill them?” She asks through gritted teeth.

 

“If they are true Night Walkers, then just like any other vampire.” Klaus answers without hesitation.

 

“Then why don’t we just go and kill them now?” Hope questions, clearly eager to hunt these vampires down and eliminate this threat.

 

“Well they are called Night Walkers for a reason. They are purists so they don’t have daylight rings and they will only move at night, so the hardest part will be finding where they are and finding out how many there are.” Hayley goes on to explain the dangers to Hope who is now understanding why they are an actual threat. “They are masters at moving through the night and if someone isn’t careful, they could easily ambush them and take them down.”

 

“So that’s why until we figure this out, we are going to enforce a curfew on all supernaturals, unless they want to take the chance of getting killed everyone will need to be home, with their pack or family by sundown.” Klaus states making sure they all understood and agreed on what was to happen next. Hayley nodded in confirmation but out of the corner of her eye, she quickly noticed Hope’s demeanor shift in almost realization.

 

“Hope?” She questioned getting her daughters attention.

 

“Everyone is at that party tonight…” Hope let out just above a whisper, clearly lost in thought as the words slip past her lips.

 

“Okay I’m calling Freya, she, Keelin and Rebekah can break up the party and relay the message of the curfew to the kids, before they come here to discuss what to do next.” Hayley states before Hope softly speaks.

 

“Can you ask Auntie Beks to drive my car back, she and Marcel should have my spare keys.” Hope asks still a bit lost in thought her gaze fixated on the bodies once again.

 

“Sure thing sweetie and Klaus can you take care of these bodies before you call your brothers?” Hayley voices as she takes Hope’s hand into hers causing her daughter to look up at her. “In the mean time, we are going to get you cleaned up.”

 

“Sure love, give me the dirty work.” Klaus says sarcastically, before he steps forward to give Hayley a kiss on the cheek and Hope a kiss on her head, “I’ll handle this get inside you two.”

 

Hayley simply nodded as she led Hope back to the house in silence. When they finally made it back into the house, Hayley couldn’t stay silent, grabbing her daughters hand before she could head upstairs to shower and change. “Okay I know something else is going on in that head of yours, what’s going on Hope?”

 

Hope hesitated, unable to look her mother in the eyes she shifted her weight back and forth between her feet. After another moment of silence Hayley lifted her hand up under Hope’s chin raising her head to look her in the eyes. With new tears falling down her cheeks, Hope finally answered “Josie saw me mom, she saw me like this, like some monster.”

 

Hayley’s heart ached for her daughter, “Hope you don’t know that-“

 

“Yes I do mom, I saw the fear in her eyes, she was terrified. She was terrified of me.” Hope cut her mother off with panic and pain clear in her voice as it cracks just like her heart. Hope pulled away from her Mother’s grasp and headed towards the stairs, but she paused after taking the first step. She turned back to her mother, her voice already hoarse as she speaks, “And you know the worst part, I still could have gotten her killed.”

 

Without another word Hope heads up to her room to get cleaned up. Hayley let out a sigh as she watched Hope walk away, her shoulders slumped looking completely defeated. “Josie Slatzman, I hope you prove me right, god I hope you’re a fighter.”

__

_——————————————————_

**Back at the party**

 

After about 30 minutes of letting the tears freely fall down her face as she sat on the forest floor, Josie finally willed herself to stand up and head back to the party. As Josie aimlessly walked back toward AJ’s house, she couldn’t help but let her thoughts be completely consumed by Hope. Who were those people Hope killed, they couldn’t have been good if she killed them. What were they doing here? Why did Hope run from her, why did she push Josie away? It finally felt like she had Hope back and it actually felt like they were about to take that next step like they almost had 3 years ago but now here she was alone again wondering if she could have just lost the girl of her dreams once again.

 

Josie hadn’t realized she had made it back to the front of AJ’s house until she nearly walked right into Hope’s car. Her eyes instantly falling onto Hope’s jacket left behind on the cars hood, her thoughts swirling back to everything that happened before Hope went into the woods, every touch, every kiss Hope left on her skin, and the moment that almost changed everything. Josie hesitantly ran her fingers along the soft material as she gently pulled it from the car. Josie took a deep breath as she held the jacket close to her chest, Hope’s scent over taking Josie’s senses as she looks up at the story sky and whispered, “Hope, please please be okay, just please let me in.”

 

Josie became lost in her thoughts once again as she just stared up at the sky totally unaware of her sisters presence on the front porch until she heard her sisters voice call out to her. “Josie there you are!! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, wait!” Lizzie had paused as she reached her sister placing her hands on her shoulders as she got a better look at her. “How are you all healed? Wait, have you been crying? And why do you have dirt and leafs all over you?”

 

“Hope…” Josie answered quietly as she could feel the tears starting to burn her eyes once again.

 

“Hey Jo, what’s wrong?” Lizzie asked as she immediately pulled her sister in for a hug as she noticed the tears forming in Josie’s eyes. Lizzie tried to rub soothing circles into her sisters back as Josie buried her face into her sisters shoulder. When she felt Josie take a deep breath Lizzie tried to ask another question as she slowly pulled away. “Jo, what about Hope?”

 

“She’s kind of the answer to all of your questions actually,” Josie replies as she starts to walk over to AJ’s front porch, taking a seat on the front steps with Lizzie close behind her.

 

“Okay I’m so confused, so do I need to thank Hope for healing you but kick her ass for making you cry? Wait where is Hope anyway?” Lizzie questions as she wraps her arm around Josie’s shoulder before looking around to see if there was any sight of the older girl.

 

Josie sighs as she pulls her knees closer to her chest letting out a weak answer, “I don’t know where she is?”

 

Lizzie’s brow furrows as she takes in her sisters words and looks over her body language, this was a bigger situation than she thought. Lizzie squeezes Josie a little tighter as she scooches over as close as she possibly can to her sister, taking a breath before she speaks. “Okay Jo what happened? From the beginning.”

 

Josie mimics her sisters actions, taking a deep breath as she relaxes into her sisters grasp letting her hold her as Josie let her head rest against her sister as she recalls what happened. "After Hope was done checking to make sure I was okay and giving me some of her blood to heal me, umm something from the tree line caught her attention. She told me to go back inside while she checked it out.” Josie pauses as she could feel her heart starting to pound thinking back on what happened, she took another deep breath before see began to speak again. “When I got to the front door I couldn’t see her anymore, I was about to go in when I heard screams coming from the forest and I panicked, thinking Hope might be hurt, so I just ran to the screams without even thinking. When I got in there I found Hope, just standing in the forest her back to me, so looked totally fine but when I called out to here she turned around covered in blood. That’s when I noticed the 4 dead bodies on the ground, I’m guessing they were the ones Hope noticed and I guess they were bad guys cause Hope killed them.”

 

“You seem rather calm about this.” Lizzie commented a bit of surprise evident in her own voice as she tried to imagine what her sister experienced.

 

“I mean I was a bit more shocked and surprised when I saw her like this. I didn’t expect it at all and it honestly just caused me to have a swirl of emotions, I couldn’t really process what was going on. It was terrifying to see Hope covered in blood.” Josie spoke with a bit of a shake to her voice that Lizzie instantly picked up on.

 

She turned Josie to face her, Lizzie looked a bit disappointed by her sisters words, “Jo Hope’s not some monster, I mean we’re all super natural creatures here, we can’t really judge."

 

“No Lizzie that’s not why it was terrifying.” Josie began to explain as she sat up a little straighter and turned to fully look at her sister. “It scared me because for a split second I thought that was all Hope’s blood. For a second I was ready to break down and cry because I thought that was her blood covering her clothes, I thought she was about to bleed out right in front of me. Thats why it was terrifying Liz.”

 

“Oh Jo.” Lizzie let out as she pulled Josie in for another tight hug and when the two pulled apart Lizzie asked the same question that Josie had been wondering since Hope disappeared, “So what happened to Hope?”

 

Before Josie had a chance to answer, the roar of an engine caught their attention just as headlights flashed in the twins eyes. They both stood up from their spot on the steps just as the car in question pulled into the driveway. The twins watched surprised to see Keelin, Freya and Rebekah Mikaelson all emerge from the car and starting to talk towards them.

 

“Freya,” Josie speaks up still with surprise written all over her face as she looked between the three powerful women, “what are you all doing here?”

 

“Josie, Lizzie,” Freya greeted with a nod, “Sorry ladies but the party’s over, we’ve got problems coming our way.” Freya answered them as the three women made their way into the house. The twins quickly looked at each other and without another word followed the Mikaelson women.

 

Students started parting like the red sea as the three women entered the main part of the house, all eyes on them when they came to a stop, the music instantly cutting out as Rebekah stared down the boy next to the speakers. That signature Mikaelson smirk playing across her lips just before she spoke, “Sorry to interrupt, I’ve always loved a good party, but this one is over.”

 

Before anyone could groan or complain, with a wave of Freya’s hand all the human students dropped to the ground knocked out asleep. “Now that’s better. All right listen up,” Freya called out getting all the supernatural students to straighten up to her words. “We are going to be straight up with all of you, there is a threat coming to Mystic Falls, one that could jeopardize our way of life here.”

 

Whispers started among the students looking to one another about what this threat could be, the whispered stop as Rebekah continued where Freya left off. “There are a lot of questions still about this threat that we don’t have the answers to that we are actively trying to figure out. In the meantime we are issuing a curfew to all supernaturals.”

 

More whispers started to arrive, this time including more groans of frustration, again they were quickly silenced once Keelin raised her voice, “Look this is for all of your safety. Thats why effective immediately, no supernaturals will be out an about after sundown unless they are with their faction for meeting reasons or with their families. Again this curfew is for all of your safety, if you want to break it, well then you are risking getting yourselves killed.” This time when Keelin finished speaking all the students remained silent.

 

“When we have more information for you all, you will know.” Freya added as she looked around at the crowd of students.

 

“Well go on now, all of you go home!” Rebekah says a bit annoyed as all of the students start to scramble out of the house. “Children these days I swear.”

 

Keelin and Freya just chuckle at Rebekah as Josie, Lizzie, Kaleb and Jed all approach them. Freya looks around at the group and immediately her eyes fall on to Lizzie, “Lizzie do you mind giving us a minute.”

 

Lizzie lets out a sigh as she looks at her friends, Josie gives her sisters hand and gives it a small squeeze as she nods her head towards the front door where MG was waiting for all of them. Lizzie gives her a small smile and a nod to the Mikaelson’s before she heads off to wait for them to finish.

 

“Alright you three, here’s the deal,” Freya takes the lead to explain, “We have an idea of who this threat is and they are most dangerous at night, so if you hear anything among your faction of people who think this curfew is stupid or useless you convince them otherwise understand. If that doesn’t work you come to one of us and let us know who we need to keep an eye on.”

 

Without even thinking Josie speaks up, “Does this have to do with Hope?” Josie asks with curiosity and a new fire in her eyes as she looks directly at Freya. Everyone else in the group just stared at Josie the boys with clear confusion on their faces, while the women all looked at her with intrigue, Hayley hadn’t mentioned in too much what happened to their niece but she had never mentioned anything about Josie.

 

Freya simply raised her brow as she looked at Josie curiously, she had always noticed there was some sort of connect with the young siphoner and her niece but this look of concern in Josie’s eyes easily told the oldest Mikaelson there was definitely something going on between them. Freya doesn’t break eye contact with Josie as she answers “Yes, it does.”

 

“Is she okay?” Josie asked almost immediately as she subconsciously gripped a little tighter on the older girls jacket that she almost forgot was still in her hand.

 

“She’s okay and safe at home, which is where all of you need to go now.” Freya answers as she looks around at the group, then she continues on with a wave of her hand towards the door. “Go on, if anything comes up we will let you all know.”

 

The trio hesitated for only a brief second before they all started to head for the door and exit the house. “Is there something I’m not aware of going on between the brunetteSaltzman and our niece?” Rebekah questions as they watch the group headed to their cars from the living room window.

 

“To be quite honest I’m not sure, but right now I wouldn’t be surprised if there is.” Freya answers with a smirk as she glances over to her sister, “Now come on, let’s get home.” Freya adds as they begin to head out the door but before they could get far Keelin’s voice catches their attention.

 

“Um honey…” Keelin calls out from the front porch, causing Rebekah and Freya to turn, “You gonna wake the up?”

 

“Oh right?” Freya chuckles, before she turns back to the house and giving it a wave of her hand before getting into the car.

 

The twins watched from their car as the Mikaelsons pulled away and headed down the street. Josie’s hands were restless as they played with Hope's jacket sleeve, her gaze fixated on the taillights that seemed to dim with the growing distance between them.

 

“Josie, are you okay?” Lizzie questions from the passenger seat.

 

“Yeah umm, I’m okay…” Josie answers with a shake of her head, trying to pull herself back to reality. Josie let her eyes fall to the jacket in her lap, letting her fingers play with the material just a moment longer as she makes a big decision. With confidence Josie turns to Lizzie and continues, “but we need to make a stop first.”

 

Lizzie looks at her sister with concern and confusion, not sure how to take her sisters new demeanor, “Jo what are you thinking?”

 

“Lizzie…please, there is something I’ve got to do.” Josie nearly pleads for her sisters approval.

 

A moment passes as Lizzie hesitates to answer, she searched her sisters eyes for an answer to what was going on in her head. When Lizzie’s eyes drift to the jacket in Josie’s lap she gets an idea of what her sister wants to do, instantly recognizing it as Hope’s. With a small smile Lizzie looks up at Josie, “One stop, then straight home.”

 

Josie smiled wide at her before she turned her attention to the road of them as she started the car. It didn’t take long for Lizzie to get confirmation of where they were going and it didn’t take that long after for the twins to arrive at the Mikaelson mansion, pulling into the driveway just as Keelin, Rebekah and Freya were walking through the front door.

 

At this point Josie wasn’t even thinking, practically hoping out of the car before it was fully parked and before Lizzie could even say a word. Josie seemed to be on autopilot when she approached the front door, her thoughts now swirling on what she was going to say as her vision focused on the steps in front of her making sure not to trip. She was once again so consumed by her thoughts she hadn’t noticed there was someone waiting for her at the front door until she finally lifted her head from the steps.

 

“Josie…” Hayley’s voice alone almost catches Josie by surprise, it felt like forever since she’s heard her voice. Hayley looked at Josie a bit surprised by her unexpected visit, “what are you doing here?”

  
“Umm hi Mrs. Mikaelson, or Marshall umm-“ Josie stutters and rambles, a bit caught off guard to run into Hope’s mom. She suddenly realizes she hadn’t really thought this plan of hers through, she hadn’t thought about what she would do if she ran into anyone else in the Mikaelson clan.

 

Before Josie could send herself into a full panic attack Hayley holds her hand up to get the young siphoner to stop her rambling as she calmly speaks, “Josie, you can just call me Hayley.”

 

“Umm okay yes ma’am. Sorry umm,” Josie spits out still a little anxious. She takes a breath and tries to settle her nerves as Hayley gives her a sweet smile. Josie goes on as she extends her hand out presenting Hope’s jacket to her, “Hope forgot this at the party.”

 

Hayley smiles as she takes the jacket from Josie’s hand. “Well I’ll make sure to give it to her. Have a good night Jo-“ Hayley begins to tell her as she starts to turn and shut the door until Josies voice cuts her off.

 

“Actually umm. May I see her… Please?” Josie asks as she takes a step closer to the front door. Hayley could hear the desperation in the young girls voice but she knew Hope wouldn’t be willing to talk to her at this moment.

 

“Now’s really not a good time, plus we did just issue the curfew.” Hayley tells her with sympathy in her voice.

 

“Please Hayley… I just, I need to know she’s okay.” Josie nearly begs, she can feel herself starting to crack.

 

Hayley takes a step out of the doorway and pulls Josie in for a hug. It’s completely unexpected but Hayley’s arms around her instantly puts Josie at ease, it wasn’t a long hug but it was enough. When Hayley pulls away she puts a hand on Josie’s shoulder as she looks her in the eyes, “I’m sorry Josie, like I said now isn’t a good time, but I promise you she’s perfectly fine.” Josie finds a little comfort in hearing Hope is alright but all she wanted to do was see it for herself. She just gives Hayley a small smile in nod understanding that was the most she was going to get. Hayley gives her a small smile back as she takes a step back, “Maybe you can try and talk to her on Monday, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Josie answers with another small smile and nod before she give a quick good bye and begins to turn and leave, “um good night Hayley.”

 

Before Josie could get too far Hayley called back out to her, “Josie!” It wasn’t until Josie turned back around giving her full attention did Hayley continue, with a soft smile, “Don’t give up on her, okay?”

 

Josie smiled back at Hayley, understanding the unsaid meaning behind her words, and with more confidence than she’s had this entire interaction Josie answered back, “I don’t plan to.”

 

With a little nod Hayley gives Josie a small smile before she shuts the front door. Although with a new sense of confidence Josie’s smile falters a little as she takes one last look at the Mikaelson mansion. She was so close, Hope was just on the other side of those walls, yet it felt like she was a million miles away. Josie let out a deep sigh before she turns away from the mansion and made her way back to the car.

 

Back inside the house Hayley walked over to the study to find Freya and Rebekah standing by the window watching as Josie made her way back to her car. The three woman stood there silently watching as the car began to pull out of the driveway.

 

“I like her.” Rebekah states flatly causing small chuckles to escape from Freya and Hayley’s lips.

 

“So something is going on between her and Hope?” Freya questions turning her attention towards Hayley.

 

Hayley sighs before she answers, “There is something there, it quite obvious when you see them together, but after tonight…” Hayley paused as she shook her head before turning to the two Mikaelson sister. “I don’t know if Hope is going to let her in.”

 

“Well she’s a Mikaelson, being stubborn is in our blood.” Rebekah comments as she turns her gaze back to the window to catch one final glimpse of the Saltzman’s car. There is a small pause before Rebekah turns back to the other women in the room, “It takes a fighter to deal with a Mikaelson, to break through our walls. Is this young Saltzman a fight?”

 

There is a moment of silence between the three of them, Freya seemed to be lost in thought as Hayley and Rebekah both turned to her. “Freya?” Hayley spoke softly pulling the eldest Mikaelson from her thoughts, “You know her better than the two of us, you think she’s a fighter?”

 

Freya smirked as she shifted her gaze from Hayley to Rebekah then back to the view outside. With a small nod Freya answered, “I think if anyone is going to get through to Hope, it’s going to be Josie Saltzman.”

 

——————————————————————————————

 

Sunday came and went for Josie, she had felt like a zombie the entire day and at this point she just felt numb. She couldn’t sleep at all that night, her thoughts were consumed by Hope wondering what happened, if she was okay, and just trying to understand why she did what she did. When her eyelids did become too heavy, the nightmares quickly invaded her mind. Josie couldn’t tell you which one was the worst one, her visions that felt more like memories of Connor attacking her but no sign of Hope to save her, the visions of Hope dying bleeding out in front of her, or the one of Hope just standing there as Josie got dragged away by monsters. Each one terrifying in its own horrible way. Josie was grateful she had Lizzie because every time her nightmare would end thanks to her sisters arms pulling her back to reality with a tight embrace but Josie grateful as she was she felt just as guilty to keep her sister from getting a decent nights sleep. Well, now make that two nights with lack of sleep.

 

When Monday morning rolls around, as tired as Josie was she couldn’t wait to be back at school, even if it was only because it meant she could see Hope. She sat anxiously at her normal table in the quad just waiting for Hope to arrive, everything around her sounding like white noise as her eyes were just fixated on Hope’s parking spot. Josie hadn’t even noticed Lizzie had taken a seat next to her until she felt her sister’s hand on her knee, causing her to stop her anxious leg shake. Josie turned her gaze to find Lizzie already looking at her with concern and sympathy, Lizzie tried to give her a reassuring smile but it wasn’t helping. Suddenly the roar of a familiar engine pulled Josie’s attention back to the parking lot.

 

Josie straightened up in her seat as she watched Hope emerge from the crowd of werewolves that had started to swarm her car when she arrived. Josie’s heart started to race as she watched Hope take her place in front leading the pack down the walkway. Hope looked almost stone faced, completely unfazed by her surroundings. Josie looked at Hope with a little disappointment, she craved to see those ocean blue eyes, praying if their eyes met she could get Hope to talk to her but Hope had shielded them from the world with her pitch black aviator sunglasses.

 

As Hope and the pack approached their table, Josie took a deep breath before she rose from her seat. She was going to do it, she was going to just walk up to Hope and talk to her, she didn’t care if everyone in the entire school saw it. As Josie threw her bag over her shoulder and was about to step into the walkway, something caught her eye. She shifted her gaze ever so slightly over Hope’s right shoulder to see Sammy staring back at her, when Josie made eye contact, Sammy simply shook her head no. Josie could only assume it was a warning for her to stay away.

 

Sammy gives her a half hearted smile as she watches Josie let her backpack fall off her shoulder and back to the ground as the pack passes Josie’s table. Sammy’s heart broke for her Captain as she looked back over her shoulder to see the Siphoner slump back into her seat. With a new determination in her step, Sammy quickened her pace a little so she was now walking at Hope’s side. Hope glances over to the younger wolf out of the corner of her eye feeling her sudden presence, she catches sight of Sammy with her head dipped down in submission to her alpha as they continued to walk, “Yes Sammy?”

 

Sammy glanced over at Hope who’s gaze was once again focused ahead of her, “Are you sure you don’t want to at least talk to her Hope?” Sammy finally questions as they approach the main entrance to the school.

 

Hope sighs as she stops in her tracks, letting some of the other wolves pass her to get the front doors. She turns to Sammy as she takes off her glass and looks the younger girl right in the eyes. “It’s better this way Sammy.”

 

“Better for who Hope?” Sammy questions her Alpha with a hint of annoyance in her voice, Hope quickly catches this, a bit surprised by the younger girls tone. Hope raises her brow at Sammy as her eyes shift gold and Hope takes a step closer to her, but Sammy doesn’t flinch. Sammy’s eyes don’t hold any anger or frustration towards her Alpha but concern and Hope can feel it. Hope’s eyes immediately shift back to her ocean blue ones just before she throws her sunglasses back on as she takes a small step back from the young wolf. Hope notices how Sammy’s eyes quickly dart from her, to a table back down the walkway, back to her and then to the ground. Hope doesn’t have to bother turning to know Sammy was looking back at Josie, after all the girl was her captain and Hope already knew Sammy cared about the both of them.

 

Hope signed again, she didn’t dare look Josie’s way, she wasn’t ready to see the siphoner look at her like a monster in the daylight. She wasn’t ready to find Josie looking at her with disdain, with fear or even disgust. As Hope takes another small step back she repeats her words to Sammy before she full turns and walks through the front doors, “It’s better this way Sammy.”

 

Sammy just sighs as she watches Hope and the rest of the pack head through the main doors of the school. The young wolf takes one last look back at her captain before heading into the school to follow her Alpha, _I hope you’re right Hope but I already know you are so wrong about this._

 

Back at their usual table Josie is slumped over in her seat, her head resting on her folded arms that rested on the table as Lizzie rubbed circles into her back. Lizzie leaned in giving her sister a half hug as she whispered to her, “Hey don’t worry Jo, it’s all going to work out.”

 

“I don’t no Liz,” Josie answers back as she fights desperately with herself not to cry, “I’m pretty sure I just lost her again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay friends I am so terribly sorry this took me so long to update. I've been super distracted lately and work has honestly been a hectic mess I haven't 1) had time to write and 2) haven't really had the desire to write. Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait and again I'm so sorry it took me this long to post this. 
> 
> So yes, the Night Walkers are going to the bad guys coming to town and I am tweaking things so obviously it won't be 100% accurate to what happened in TO because its an AU and its my story 😜. Now I will warn all of you, with the season premier next week I'm honestly debating on waiting until the midseason break to continue updating. With new content and storylines in the show, I'm not sure if I want to let any of them help me get ideas for this story or to just completely keep it separate. Haven't quite made a decision on that yet.
> 
> Alright now, okay be honest. What did you all think? Was is worth the wait? Please leave a comment with what you thought or hit me up on twitter @acchica2527. Thank you all again for all the love and for following along with this story and for sticking around for so long. Love you all!


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